national database of sears homes

They werent all the 3-bedroom Craftsman ranch style you see throughout Los Angeles or the compact Levittowners in Pennsylvania and Long Island to the east: the, models were probably the great-grandaddy of the modern McMansion, with the, model being its odd little cousin that sits in the potato salad at the family reunion, what with the odd arrangement of, True to the companys roots in selling to rural Midwesterners, they even had a catalog for farmhouses, barns, and other barn buildings. Measuring in at a roomy 3,500 square feet, the . Welcome to Sears Homes! 506 W 11th Street, La Porte, Indiana probable Sears No. Sears could keep manufacturing costs down compared to standard builders and competing catalogs because they had their own manufacturing facilities by then and were able to mass-produce wood, asphalt, insulation material, hardware, and everything else needed to produce a home that wasnt a Habitat for Humanity hut. Damn, it was like Stardew Valley! This site is a tribute to the original Sears Houses in Cincinnati Were most Sears Houses built by the owners? Given the more disposable nature of shipping container homes and the portability granted by some tiny houses, its kind of sad in a way that this current crop of Internet-order homes is not only not as simple or affordable as it was yesteryear, but also carries less permanence compared to these mail-order houses. You can contact Rose through her Facebook group, "Sears Kit Homes" or email: Magnolia2047@gmail.com. Thank you for visiting! Whatever Happened to Those Mail-Order Houses From the Sears Catalog? Because of the economics after 1931, I can say I am. Price: $179,900. [13] Only seven Magnolias are known to be still standing. national database of sears homes. In areas where the land is already mostly developed and zoned, its not that simple. During the later era of pre-cut houses, we don't usually put homes on our list, if they have these kinds of design differences. 168 / Matoka: I am really (really!) I don't know the model, but it was a 2 story - 6 room house - 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, living room, dining room, and very small galley type kitchen. I see you posted about the origins of Hollywood three years ago! National Database: Sears Homes in the U.S. SHORT VIDEO: What It's Like to Live in a Sears Catalog Home, SHORT VIDEO: NBC Nightly News visits Andrew & Wendy Mutch. Homes built after 1916 can be identified as Sears kit homes by numbers stamped on the timbers. If those were the top sellers, no model could catch the Argyle at that rate. Several Sears Modern Homes are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. On another block of W 11th Street, there is an example of the Sears Modern Home No. It's highly improbable that any model could hit the 1,700 mark. Some of these homes were based on models offered in the Sears Modern Homes catalog. The Sears Argyle was named after Argyle Street in Chicago. Here is one of the eleven examples in La Porte: This early version of the No. I believe my parents were the 3rd owners purchasing the house in 1965 or 1966. Another gabled ell farmhouse that we found quite a few of in La Porte, is the No. Los Angeles Modern Stilt Home Featured in Heat (Listed for $1.599 Million), International House Flipper Alex Camacho Makes $80k Profit on One House Flip, Bugsy Siegel Murder Mansion in Beverly Hills Flats (Listed for $17 Million), Zsa Zsa Gabors Pink Palm Springs Palace (Listed for $3.8 Million), 35 Kitchen Breakfast Bars The Latest In Casual Kitchen Dining. My daughter and son-in-law have a 1924 Homeville in Abington! , there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. The wild pursuit began with an a This was the case with most of the compact pre-1920 Sears houses. took off, many builders started offering everything from ready-made prehab homes to foundations and blueprints. If my house is not a kit, where did it come from? Other models only appeared for one year. It mightve been easier to get a job or start a business off the bat compared to the hoops and bureaucracy we have for both these days, but there was no U-Haul or Pods to make. One of the biggest questions that researchers have been wanting to answer is: What is the Top-Selling Sears House of All Time? As some areas begin to see population booms, such as the tech triangle region of Raleigh, Durham, and Cary as more companies and tech talent make exodus from California and New York based on what I hear from taxi drivers and my university contacts in the region at games conferences every year? We've found examples from the Wardway, Gordon-Van Tine, Harris Homes, and Ray H. Bennett companies. small-town America, 1920! So, they are likely from Sears. I now live in St. Louis, Missouri, and am sometimes asked if there are any Sears houses here. I hope you found this informative, and learned that Sears houses come in lots of shapes, sizes, and styles. Cindy's research in Delaware County, coupled with my research in Montgomery County, netted at least 200 hundred authenticated houses, but that research was preceded by many hours of searching the streets of Willow Grove, Glenside, and other suburbs, by Karen, Nigel, Sarah, Marie, and Andrew. Ephemera can help identify a house as a Sears Home. Government spending was dedicated to housing in an unprecedented manner as the mantra was driven home that the ideal was a nuclear family in a 3-bedroom suburban house with a car in every driveway. I think that maybe Google maps Streetview wasn't great quality on many of the streets. Did materials and labor really get that much more expensive between now and then? There are examples of modern homes built based on the design of Sears Modern Home. There was one snippet in the press release that only a couple newspapers reprinted: "Following twelve years of usefulness, one old design was removed from the home catalogue in 1928, as antiquated after having been constructed more than 1700 times, which probably constitutes the world's record for any construction duplication from a single house plan, he [Betcone] says.". | Sears Modern Homes", "Sears Houses in Arlington Virginia: A Comprehensive List", "How Sears built an entire local neighborhood", "Historic Structures Crystal Lake Historical Society", "Sears Houses in Elgin Illinois arranged according to model name", "Philadelphia Inquirer: Sears Homes in the Philly Suburbs and Sears House Hunters", "Where are the rest of the Sears houses in the U.S.? [38][39], One well-known replica of a Sears house is at the "Farm at Prophetstown" museum in Battle Ground, Indiana, which features a replica of a Hillrose model. If you don't know what that means, look at these two examples, and note where the orange arrow points that little extra strip of roofing that makes a sort of closed triangle. They produced three different product lines based on budget: the high-end Honor Bilt homes, Standard Built homes that were popular with young families, and Simplex Sectional low-budget homes that were mostly used as vacation cottages. This means that information about the Modern Homes department is scarce. We are a team of about 10 researchers who work together to hunt around the U.S. for Sears kit houses built during the era of the Sears Modern Homes program (1908-1942). 159. I considered putting a full chart here, but, honestly, we have found hundreds through searching the suburban PA counties outside of Philadelphia. The rest of these models are singletons, from the mid 1920s to early 1930s. As only a small percentage of these homes were documented when built, finding these houses today often requires detailed research to properly identify them. The next housing boom came after World War II so that veterans could have affordable housing for their families and suburbs could accommodate the massive amount of white flight taking place. That's why we love seeking them out! In a second blog post, I'll show the several probable kit houses that we've found in LaPorte, Indiana, from other companies. Like this page to learn about homes purchased as kits through mail order catalogs. Please contact me if you would like a free 3 in U.S. with, at today's count, 1,963 Sears homes. Capture from Google Streetview. So this blog has been radio silent for a while now! Park, MD. This is what these two models look like, in the catalogs (these are from the 1911/1912 catalog): Up until this point, we weren't really sure what the difference was between these two models. Chabot runs a national website dedicated to gathering and sharing information about Sears mail-order homes. I have seen articles throughout the years about Sears homes in the Pittsburgh area, she wrote after reading the Trib story. ", "Bill of Materials for Sears Modern Home", "Two Italian Families and their Neighboring Sears Houses", "New Homes in Cranford for $4,000!Biggest development evolved in Sunny Acres", "Yes, Virginia, Sears Homes Were Built After 1940", "The Top Four Most Popular Sears Homes--Have You Seen These? Despite this large number, Sears houses are still, actually, rare, and only make up about 2% of the houses built in their era. Open to the public. Although it is sometimes claimed that no Sears kit homes were built after 1940, Sears continued to offer pre-cut kit homes through 1941 and into early 1942. She searched the Sears Home archive until she found a catalog with a photo and description of her home. And Sears Modern Homes werent a monolith. The nine easy signs follow: 1) Look for stamped lumber in the basement or attic. If you are a Historical Society interested in awarding plaques for specific homes understood to be Sears houses, please feel free to contact us to verify for you that the house does match a model offered in the Sears Modern Homes catalogs. Spatial information is available through GIS downloads or can be viewed in the BIOS Viewer. We soon realized that she had a keen eye for Sears houses (and a keen love for them, as her great-grandfather had built a Sears Martha Washington in Oakwood, Ohio), and she joined our research group. I just loved the look of it, she said. presentation, nows your chance! [1] Sears Modern Homes were purchased primarily by customers in East Coast and Midwest states, but have been located as far south as Florida, as far west as California, and as far north as Alaska and Canada. But, as of this date in 2021, here are leading areas in the U.S. with high numbers of Sears houses. catalogs for all central and satellite halos down to 10^06 MSun. small-town America even into the 1940 census). Here are a few: Andrew just today noticed this brick house with the Sears curlicue decorative iron strapping (only offered by Sears, and the only style of iron strapping ever offered by Sears). Its as sturdy as a house as Ive ever seen. It even halted sales of houses themselves for a short time before restarting sales. My home reminds me of that type of architecture.. Sears Modern Homes built in the 1930s may have a small circled "SR" cast into the bathtub in the lower corner (furthest from the tub spout and near the floor) and on the underside of the kitchen or bathroom sink. When the tiny house movement took off, many builders started offering everything from ready-made prehab homes to foundations and blueprints. Moreover, it was just more feasible to plunk down a house somewhere because there just werent as many homes on account of a smaller population. website, which was published from Oct 2013 to Nov 2014. They raised four kids in that house, Steel wrote. During the Modern Homes program, large quantities of asphalt shingles became available. to you on Flickr or Pinterest. Beginning in 1916, the catalogs showed an additional floor plan that did have a bathroom: The rest of the examples of Sears houses in La Porte, that we have found to date, are one-off examples, so were probably individual purchases by the original homeowner, or a few spec houses by the realty company mentioned in the American Lumberman article. People need move-in ready housing and they need it fast, whether single professionals are seeking apartments and luxury condos or families need affordable freestanding houses. In many cases, we may be able to tell you of homes in your town, that have actually been authenticated as Sears homes, and, in some cases, we may be able to tell you that the house in question is a kit house from another company (consider, , All photos in these blog posts are the property of the author of this blog- link to this blog. We have not surveyed all areas of the country equally. [8] By 1934, Sears had stopped offering mortgages. A Gilded Mansion in Newport Beach, CA (Unreal), Fallen Titan that is Sears department stores. We have three on our list in Glenside -- one on Cedar, one on Tyson, and one on Edge Hill Rd. But articles are so scattered by time, date and location that it is difficult to realize the scope and number of Sears homes here in the Pittsburgh area.. There were about 132 million people by the time Sears stopped selling Sears Modern Homes kits in 1940. In other cases, the home followed the general design of a Sears house without being an exact duplicate. This Sears mail-order house named The Crescent was built in Munhall in 1920, according to owner Molly Harbst. Not all Sears houses became private residences. , in addition to Aladdin and Montgomery Ward homes. This Sears mail-order kit home in McCandless is owned by Normajean Moser. Additionally, at this point in the Sears Modern Homes program, the homes were sold/packaged only with standard-length wood, so none of the framing lumber would have been pre-cut (and, therefore, there would be no alpha-numeric stamps on the wood pieces in the house). The last Sears Modern Homes catalog was issued in 1940. From 1908 to 1942, Sears sold more than 70,000 of these houses in North America, by the company's count. Residential construction was drastically down nationwide due to the Great Depression. Parts for the homes, which were sold between 1908 and 1940, were delivered to the nearest rail station. Text information is available through RareFind 5 and provides essential information about special status species and occurrences. This is just the top of the blog page you'll find dozens of links to online catalogs here, a link to the excellent Pinterest resource made for us by Sears-house owner Dale Haynes, and a list of hard-copy book resources that are both interesting and informative. In it, they included excerpts from an interview with David S. Betcone, who was the chief architect for Sears at the time. If home is where the heart is, then those living in houses built from Sears mail-order kits may have fallen head-over-heels. when you switch jobs, buy a house, and go on an international trip, all He published the design as #466 in his 1912 "Craftsman Bungalows" catalog. Melissa Steel of Patterson Heights in Beaver County said the story about the Sears house in McCandless sparked fond memories of the family next door who lived in one for many years. to you on Flickr or Pinterest. Would you mind messaging me with an address, so that we can add your Sears house to our (private) national database? Owners of these houses along the years may have, however, found paper shipping labels affixed to the back of trim pieces around doors or windows, or decorative moulding pieces. national database of sears homes. But what if you want something bigger than a tiny house, but not as gargantuan as the average American single family home? Action in the Community Through Service Homeless Shelter. Powered by, This September 2017 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, this short video story by the Washington Post. In fact, the No. One final note about our list: as I've mentioned, our list includes, for the most part, homes that we have located, ourselves, but also those that we have learned about from other people. And, shortly after me, came Karen DeJeet, a Pittsburgh resident who learned of Sears houses when she found out that she lived in one (the. Prefab homes arent exactly an exotic concept nowadays. The truth is out there, and I think you've found it! Thanks for giving me a new appreciation for the Argyle! Ruth's Beauty Parlor: A Sears No. These pre-1916 houses are generally considered "catalog houses", not "kit houses". When we find a mortgage record, we're just given a buyer's name, and a legal description of a property. Sometimes researchers get lucky and find facts and figures in old company newsletters, personal papers of Sears managers and executives, historical newspapers, and archival interviews conducted with people who worked in the department in the 1930's and 1940's. How do we know another house didn't outsell the Argyle after 1931? There is some debate about whether some homes from Sears that were built in 1941 and 1942 qualify as Sears Modern Homes. Damn, it was like. I saw a recent article in The Star Ledger about Sears Homes that mentioned your blog. Molly Harbst of Munhall sent along photos of her beautifully preserved Sears homes a 1920 model called The Crescent after reading the article. Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. Because these homes were constructed using pre-cut lumber and plans provided by Sears, these homes can be considered to be "Sears Modern Homes". We thought it might be of interest to those readers to point out some more of the history of Sears houses in the greater Pittsburgh area, said Chabot, whose family still owns a Sears Silverdale model home in Northampton, Mass., that was built by her great-grandparents in 1911. Due to reviews by homeowners then and now, it would appear that Sears Modern Homes are just as appreciated now as they were then. 115 cuts off abruptly, right in the middle of the front facade, even with the left side of the upper window, and it then has a straight slope porch roof jutting out. Simply put, life was rougher. Asbury Methodist Village Communications Dept. ", "How to Properly Identify a Sears Magnolia", "Have You Seen This Kit Schoolhouse? Theres a whole checklist of signs to look for, such as stamped lumber in the basement or attic, shipping labels on the baseboards and other millwork, or even looking up your deed and records pertaining to the actual home purchase. Later, Sears constructed a second mill in Port Newark, New Jersey and purchased the Norwood Sash and Door Company in Norwood, Ohio. 175, 1911/12 catalog image for the Sears Modern Home No. 264B155. Despite being prefab, they got more character than the endless sea of suburban eyesores we got out there now. Freestanding suburban or rural homes were more likely to stand alone in undeveloped lots instead of planned tracts that were set aside by federal and state governments and/or builders that had uniformity in mind. 171's porch roof (when it is a partial porch) connects to the house far to the right side of that upper window and then has a wedge-shape side part to that roof, so that both models end the porch just to the edge of the front door, but with a very different treatment to the shape of the porch roof there. 5008". Thats cheaper than many tiny houses and with space to actually breathe and have more than one person live with you without wanting to kill each other. BMO, LAFC, and Angel City FC leaders were joined by special guests Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Mia Hamm for the . Their blueprints were based on what was popular at the time and while they werent the first or only company to do mail-order houses, theyre among the most memorable because you could buy damn near anything in their 500+ page catalogs. Posted by ; fort lincoln cemetery obituaries; Our goal is always to authenticate these houses through mortgage and deed research, or other primary sources, but, when that is not possible, we apply a careful, team approach to analyzing each house that goes on our national list. [17] Later on in the Modern Homes timeline, Sears had in-office designers but titled them as "experts" rather than actual architects.[17]. Cities that have records of building permits may list Sears, Roebuck as the original architect. Simple theme. Local Sears house enthusiast Karen DeJeet, who owns a Hamilton model in Forest Hills and is a member of the Sears House Finder team, has already done much of the work identifying the mail-order homes still standing in the region. Fabricated houses sold primarily through mail order, Column detail from a Sears Vallonia house, pictured alongside its appearance in the catalog, Modern interpretations of Sears Modern Homes, "Did Sears, Roebuck Sell Homes in Canada? Sears also offered a plasterboard product similar to modern drywall as an alternative to the plaster and lath wall-building techniques which required skilled carpenters and plasterers. I think teardowns are the reason that Argyles are not positioned higher in our national database of Sears homes (the Argyle comes in at number 20). That is unique to Sears. The CNDDB is comprised of two data components: Text information and spatial information. Ive visited New Orleans several times and love the style of the buildings there. 181 (264P181) in the 1914 Sears Modern Homes catalog, This image is from the 1913 Sears Modern Homes catalog re-print, available, 374 Hawthorne Street, La Porte, Indiana Sears Modern Home No. Lara Solonickne, who writes the blog. The. [16], There was no single architect for the Sears designs. city or state, or to find someone who owns the same model as you. 1232, later marketed as the No. [18] National and regional competitors in the catalog and kit home market included Aladdin, Bennett, Gordon-Van Tine, Harris Brothers, Lewis, Pacific Ready Cut Homes, Sterling and Montgomery Ward (Wardway) Homes. How Many Sears Houses Are Still Out There? New models were introduced every year, and some only stuck around for a couple years. A high-speed chase involving an armed carjacking suspect ended in Los Angeles Friday afternoon when the suspect crashed into a police vehicle, and then into a pole. By Posted on Mar 10, 2021. national database of sears homes. Builders that already have both the funds and the skilled professionals in architecture, construction, and land use make it easier for the average person who only wants to worry about their career, move, and family. muhammad ali i am the greatest speech transcript . Instead, shipping labels were affixed to the backside of trim that identified properties. The suburbs of Philadelphia are not the only places where we find Sears houses, by the way. National Database: Sears Homes in the U.S. SHORT VIDEO: What It's Like to Live in a Sears Catalog Home, SHORT VIDEO: NBC Nightly News visits Andrew & Wendy Mutch, Sears No 137 In Mendham, New Jersey, Morris County. Camden County would be a great place to search, because we know that there are Sears houses in Collingswood, Haddon Township, Haddonfield, and Haddon Heights but, how many? Open to the public. But David Betcone told us what model was in first place as of 1931. Related: Floating Chairs and Texas McMansions | McMansions vs Really Big Houses | Strange Mansion in Carmel, Indiana | What is a Mansion. Hi, Lauren! Park, MD. homes for rent in laplace 70068. national database of sears homes. CNDDB Maps and Data. They produced three different product lines based on budget: the high-end Honor Bilt homes, Standard Built homes that were popular with young families, and Simplex Sectional low-budget homes that were mostly used as vacation cottages. Sarah is especially interested in searching the kit homes of Western New York State, and has found us some beautiful Sears houses, but she is especially revered by all of us for her extensive knowledge of kits from the Ray H. Bennett kit homes company, which was based out of North Tonawanda. Charleston, West Virginia is a hotspot for Sears model homes, in addition to Aladdin and Montgomery Ward homes. Sometimes the legal description is nice and straightforward, like, "lot 15, block C, Tanglewood Estates, in the town of Dunham". We also find street names that have changed (without our knowing that), or, especially for folks who bought their house in 1930-32 (the waning years of the mortgage program), we find that folks lost their homes during the depression, so we can't pin them down using the 1930 or 1940 census records. We cannot be absolutely certain, but the numbers do not support it. You usually just left with the clothes on your back and a few trunks, and that was it. It's likely that other Sears models can be traced to him as well. In the early years, the models were identified with numbers. Finally, if you really want to understand the basics of what a Sears Modern Homes kit house is, and what it is not, you might find this blog post of mine to be helpful and informative. Sears licensed the plans for the Argyle from a. real estate builder/developer named Jud Yoho. houses that share a name also share either a number, a floor plan or had Rebecca lives in Elgin, Illinois, and undertook a huge research project, to find, and document, kit houses in that town. Documented Sears houses have been found across the United States and in a few locations in Canada. We saw that on numerous Rossville/No. How did Sears Modern Homes come to be? Most of us have a small collection of physical catalogs, or PDF catalogs, but we rely heavily on resources provided, especially, by our friend at AntiqueHome.org, and Daily Bungalow. The kit was greatly modified by Lane's ambitious designs. The original "Sears Modern Homes" community page on Facebook, for those interested in Sears homes. Chabot said while Sears wasnt the first or only company to sell mail-order homes, they were unique among the competition. I have the Farnum in New Brighton PA. 1929. Referred to as a gable-front-and-wing, it was a national folk style that owed much of its heritage to the earlier Greek Revival style. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that certain elements of the house construction be done professionally and varied depending on where the house was constructed. In the story, homeowner Alicia Dallago said she had no idea the home she bought in 1998 was built from a kit. 159 examples that have a closed pediment in the gable (and a porch style difference). Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. And, to top it off, Gordon-Van Tine has a model almost the same. Andrew spotted these two houses right next to each other, on W 11th Street: a No. In 1908, Sears issued its first specialty catalog for houses, Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans, featuring 44 house styles ranging in price from US $360$2,890. I learn all kinds of interesting stuff here; thanks! No built examples have been found of some of the least popular models. The Rossville/No. While these features werent in every single Sears home, they still set the stage for home builders to realize what people wanted in their new digs because of how much their quality of life was improved. The Sears Argyle was a small house, about 1,000 square feet, and many of them have been demolished. [2] No comprehensive list of their locations exists.[3]. 181, and the early version of the. This table provides a Streetview link for each house (or, occasionally, a real estate listing link), and, for houses I've shown, but not provided a catalog image of, you'll find a link to a catalog image, as well. It wasnt until she was in her 20s that Chabot learned about the homes history. Some builders and companies purchased houses directly from Sears to build as model homes, speculative homes, or homes for customers or employees. Im looking at this cute little. the case of the Anstett family of Torrington, Connecticut. [5] The method was originally named in the sense that the structure was light and could be lifted away like a balloon.

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