sub 2:15 half marathon training plan; national database of sears homes. 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. Sears' first kit houses sold for $650 to $2,500, or approximately $16,500 to $63,700 in today's dollars. Whitehouse. Kushel is credited with suggesting to Richard Sears that the company assemble kits of all the parts needed and sell entire houses through mail order. Goodwall sheet plaster was an early drywall-like product offered by Sears and may be an indication of a Sears Modern Home. [13] Only seven Magnolias are known to be still standing. Cities that have records of building permits may list Sears, Roebuck as the original architect. Stevenson, Katherine Cole, and Jandl, H. Ward, (1995), Davis, Michael W.R. and Schweitzer, Robert (1990), This page was last edited on 4 March 2023, at 21:18. Its kind of exciting to learn that your home is unique because of the way it was bought and constructed, she said. Another key figure in the original research into Sears kit houses, was a woman named Beatrice Lask. 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. After several years, Sears also began assigning names to the various models. Images are available Kmart History | Search Archives | Sears Holdings Alumni | sears.com | kmart.com : Thursday, Mar. Dover, Chateau, and Lexington models are particularly plentiful there! Today, those marks can help prove that you have a kit home. While researching the property, Harbst learned it was among the first homes built in the boroughs Homestead Park neighborhood. CNDDB Maps and Data. I think the reason the Sears house is so interesting is that most people associate them with the Wish Book catalog that came in the mail at Christmas. I know of several other models in McCandless. Run by experienced researcher Cindy Catanzaro (with a little help from yours truly). There were about 132 million people by the time Sears stopped selling Sears Modern Homes kits in 1940. . Tucker/Crossroads 172, later marketed as the. The group has identified nearly 540 of the estimated 1,000 Sears mail-order homes that are believed to have been constructed in the region. Other companies such as Aladdin sold mail-order homes, but thats all they sold, Chabot said. True to the companys roots in selling to rural Midwesterners, they even had a catalog for farmhouses, barns, and other barn buildings. If yours is not one of those, please let us know :) We are confident about all three being Sears houses, but have not been able to authenticate any of them (with mortgage or deed records, blueprints, shipping labels, letters from Sears, or marked lumber). Here is a year-by-year list of houses as they were advertised in the Sears Modern Homes catalogs. Not all Sears houses were mortgaged through Sears, but many were, so it's a great help for us to be able to access those records. I love finding these houses and learning more about them, the different models that were sold and the people who bought them.. Sears discontinued its Modern Homes catalog after 1940, though sales through local sales offices continued into 1942. Sears has opened the doors to its vast archival collection and invited the public to peek inside. The iron strapping itself can be strait or curved, but the curlicue is always there, if it's iron strapping from Sears. Architecturally, I'm really surprised by the two versions of the Cedars floor plan -- they are completely different, though only two feet were added to make the larger one. 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. How did Sears Modern Homes come to be? According to the US Census, there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. That's not shown anywhere for this model, so we can't say for sure if these are examples of the No. Search crews have rescued Californians stranded for days in multiple feet of snow after back-to-back storms plastered the state's mountain communities and trapped many in their homes. Also, considering that the article was published in April of 1912, all of these models would have been marketed only with their number, as no word names were given to the models until 1916. So, Can We See Some Philly Suburbs Sears Houses? rebeccahunter1216@gmail.com. I didn't have very many leads for Kevin Riordan, for the NJ suburbs but, for the PA side of the Philadelphia suburbs that's a different matter, indeed! 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. I'm sure it was Matthew who cleared up for me that the No. You can search the house listings by clicking on a group of years ( 1908-1914 , 1915-1920 , 1921-1926 , 1927-1932 and 1933-1940 ). Sears Modern Homes were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Co., an American retailer. Your comment will appear after it has been previewed and approved by the blog author. I don't feel comfortable making that assumption. 171 often has a full front porch that ends up extending all the way to the left side of the house. Sears is estimated to have sold about 70,000 of their home building kits from 1908-1940 and its currently estimated that about 70% of the original Sears homes built from kits are still standing today. Once again true to the companys roots, youre more apt to find Sears catalog homes still standing in former factory towns of the Midwest. : Ohio is the state with the largest number, Pennsylvania is the third- highest-ranking state, Prince George's County, MD & Montgomery County, MD. Once delivered, many of these houses were assembled by the new homeowner, relatives, friends and neighbors, in a fashion similar to the traditional barn-raisings of farming families. 168 (Matoka): Here is the catalog image of the No. Among those chiming in about the article was Judith Chabot of St. Louis, Mo., who runs SearsHouseSeekers.com, which serves as a depository for information gathered by Sears home enthusiasts across the country. I'm currently working my way through the Burlington County records, but they are limited, and set up in a way that makes the process very time consuming. [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. marlon brando children; pete the cat and his four groovy buttons comprehension questions; nolin lake conditions; dan majerle hall of fame; dayton floor drill press,belt A number of those homes are featured on the organizations website. If my house is not a kit, where did it come from? Lets find out! 3 in U.S. with, at today's count, 1,963 Sears homes. The company was forced to liquidate $11 million in defaulted debt. 4120 Adams St., Gary, IN. Argyles also have a tendency to hide. Statewide, about 1,900 Sears catalog homes have been identified. Posted by ; fort lincoln cemetery obituaries; Enjoy! I think that we had only a handful of houses already on the list a few. You roughed it until you found a new place and if you wanted a FOREVER home, you stayed put until it was done being built. 199 models here in La Porte, are somewhat tweaked in their design, but we still do think that they are examples of that model. The house that would soon become the Argyle in one of Yoho's magazines, 1913. Park, MD. Despite this large number, Sears houses are still, actually, rare, and only make up about 2% of the houses built in their era. We certainly imagine that the houses have been retro-fitted with one, at this point. Please browse through and enjoy the 1,000+ posts and 5,000+ photos! Some Home Club homes have deeds from the "Port Newark Lumber and Material Company". Rebecca lives in Elgin, Illinois, and undertook a huge research project, to find, and document, kit houses in that town. The house was in original condition and was never modified while we lived there - it was sold in 2003 or early 2004. Search. 126 and a Sears No. Some models of Sears homes were very similar in design to models offered by other kit home manufacturers or through plan books. small-town America, 1920! You'll notice that most are in states east of the Mississippi River, with highest overall state totals in Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York. We saw that on numerous Rossville/No. BMO, LAFC, and Angel City FC leaders were joined by special guests Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Mia Hamm for the . | 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.? Simple theme. Harbst said many of the original features in her home are intact and the exterior remains mostly unchanged. 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. So this blog has been radio silent for a while now! I-79 restrictions begin Wednesday night in Allegheny County, West Deer firefighters respond to bedroom fire, heavy smoke at Poplar Street home, Man shot dead in McKeesport the 4th slaying this week and 5th in a month, Medical examiner IDs man killed in McKeesport shooting, Report on Allegheny County Jail deaths finds no 'trends or common factors' that led to them, Historic Hempfield cemetery seeks volunteers, donors to help care for grounds, 2nd annual 'Restaurant Ramble' features 10 downtown New Kensington eateries, Tom Sizemore, Saving Private Ryan actor, dies after brain aneurysm, TV Talk: Mel Brooks History of the World, Part II belatedly arrives on Hulu, Western Pennsylvania's trusted news source, story about a 1922 Sears mail-order home in McCandless, number of those homes are featured on the organizations website. The truth is out there, and I think you've found it! However, the streets that are lined with these farmhouse models (and many other houses), are actually in the Lakeview neighborhood so, we imagine that was a mistake in the article. to you on Flickr or Pinterest. 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. My father knew the local builder (Mr. Humphreys) who put the house together. Sure, your Wabash or Verona model built in New Jersey could look just like the same one ordered in Texas and built there, but it wasnt designed to look exactly like the other homes on the block. Sometimes the legal description is nice and straightforward, like, "lot 15, block C, Tanglewood Estates, in the town of Dunham".