I grew up in a Sears house located in Keyport NJ. They kept up with it, of course, but it sure has good bones. The group has identified 2,700 Sears homes in Ohio and 2,300 in Illinois. Here is one at 17 Hill Street, Villa Park. Whatever Happened to Those Mail-Order Houses From the Sears Catalog? Please browse through and enjoy the 1,000+ posts and 5,000+ photos! Here are both of these models in the 1911/12 Sears Modern Homes catalog. Car culture hadnt yet arrived, but trains and trolleys began extending to these greener areas that were still pretty empty so you could visit or work in the city. Text information is available through RareFind 5 and provides essential information about special status species and occurrences. Checklist Search provides a simple and fast way to generate a pre-formatted checklist suitable for printing. when you switch jobs, buy a house, and go on an international trip, all Mrs. Lask had been a well-respected and well-known docent at the Cincinnati Historical Society, who led interesting bus tours and lectures about Cincinnati architectural history, when she embarked on this project in the 1990s (which she did while in her 70s-- a testament to the concept of life-long learning). According to the US Census, there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. I was intrigued by the concept of people picking out a house from a catalog, she said. The truth is out there, and I think you've found it! Many included the latest technology available to house buyers in the early part of the twentieth century, such as central heating, indoor plumbing, telephone, and electricity . This label was discovered in a Sears Silverdale model home built in 1911 in Northhampton, Mass., by Judith Chabots grandparents. The original "Sears Modern Homes" community page on Facebook, for those interested in Sears homes. We just can't say, because we can't access those records. This Sears mail-order kit home in McCandless is owned by Normajean Moser. Stamped lumber: Most easily found in unfinished spaces like a basement or attic, framing members were stamped with a letter and a number. ", "Sears Houses of Massapequa Park, New York", "Made to Order: Many American Dreams Came Out of the Sears Catalog, Including Do-It-Yourself Houses", "Yesterday's kit houses are today's sought-after properties", "The Story on Sears: Houses by rail and mail", "Syracuse house, which came from a Sears catalog, is one of only seven of its kind in U.S.", "The House Is in the Mail: 'Kit homes' from Sears and others were an affordable housing option", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sears_Modern_Homes&oldid=1142882633, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. 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. 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. She said she also didnt know it was a mail-order house when she bought it 14 years ago. The houses made it as far as Alaska and Canada, as the parts were delivered by railroad. Sears Lewiston: A Sears Model Home in New Jersey Authenticated Sears Lewiston 261 N. Jackson St., North Plainfield, NJ 1929 This great-looking Sears Lewiston was built in 1929, and used as a model home for Sears after it was built by Anthony P. Raffaniello, and his wife, Helena. houses that share a name also share either a number, a floor plan or had So, I'll just post a nice selection here. catalogs for all central and satellite halos down to 10^06 MSun. Many of the famous designs were commandeered from other sources and/or purchased from architects but given just enough change to be advertised as their own. 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. [13] Only seven Magnolias are known to be still standing. Several Sears Modern Homes are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Or, perhaps we have background information about it to share with you!Judith. Spatial information is available through GIS downloads or can be viewed in the BIOS Viewer. 162 Sears houses still standing, including those in the city of Alexandria. You can contact Rose through her Facebook group, "Sears Kit Homes" or email: Magnolia2047@gmail.com. Simply put, life was rougher. 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 You'll also notice that the No. At Greenlawn Cemetery, near the Hampton Roads waterfront in the Newport News, Virginia, area, the cemetery office building is a 1936 Sears Modern Home. contacting them by clicking on their name. that ranged from simple and rustic to utterly decadent. Run by experienced researcher Cindy Catanzaro (with a little help from yours truly). There are two examples of this model, in La Porte. Keep in mind, however, that even though we have found well over 200 Sears houses in the PA and NJ suburbs of Philadelphia, those are densely populated areas. Lara Solonickne, who writes the blog. 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. In other cases, the home followed the general design of a Sears house without being an exact duplicate. The Preservation Commission has identified a majority of the styles, but since many are modified it can be hard to tell. to share their names with others who might be interested in There havent been any major structural changes, she said. Sadly, surviving Argyles do tend to be heavily altered there are probably lots more hiding in plain sight. According to Betcone, the two models that were the top sellers for Sears in 1930 totaled just over 100 houses a year. In areas where the land is already mostly developed and zoned, its not that simple. I love finding these houses and learning more about them, the different models that were sold and the people who bought them.. You can search the house listings by clicking on a group of years ( 1908-1914 , 1915-1920 , 1921-1926 , 1927-1932 and 1933-1940 ). 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. 175 (in 1913). If my house is not a kit, where did it come from? That's what happens More information, in this blog post of mine, documented through historic mortgage research, by Andrew Mutch, Philadelphia Inquirer article by Kevin Riordan, 418 Woodlawn Ave, Collingswood, NJ 08108, USA, Catalogs Online: Sears, Radford, Gordon-Van Tine, Sears Starlight (Sears Homes of Chicagoland), Sears Door Hardware: La Tosca, Shefton, Rhythmic, ONLINE CATALOGS on Archive.org: Sears, GVT, Radford +more. Damn, it was like. | 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.? Researchers Cindy Catanzaro and Andrew Mutch, and the late Donna Bakke, put together a document explaining Bea's work, and listing 345 of the houses that she found, which you can see. And, to top it off, Gordon-Van Tine has a model almost the same. Goodwall sheet plaster was an early drywall-like product offered by Sears and may be an indication of a Sears Modern Home. I think that we had only a handful of houses already on the list a few. 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. It's likely that other Sears models can be traced to him as well. Excuse me while I openly weep thinking about how many vacation cottages today probably cost the same or even more than house houses in many parts of the country. Lara and Cindy were joined by Andrew Mutch, who is based out of his own Sears house, in Novi, Michigan. of the original Sears homes built from kits are still standing today. Weve got so much fucking housing just sitting there that NO ONE should be condemned to homelessness. 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. 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. The Sears Argyle was named after Argyle Street in Chicago. "The Sears Homes of Illinois" has more than 200 color photos of the most popular designs that Sears offered and can be very helpful in identifying Sears Homes. Sears Is Crumbling, but These 9 Sears Catalog Homes Stand Tall Simple theme. 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. Thank you for visiting! Other Sears houses were found dotting other areas of La Porte, but the biggest concentration of the early models, probably all from 1912, were in that Lakeview area. Chabot notes that Sears mail-order homes sold before 1916 did not use precut lumber that was stamped with numbers to guide construction. Powered by, This September 2017 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, this short video story by the Washington Post. 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? Looks like Yoho probably bought plan #466 from H. L. Wilson, the actual designer. Looking at the sorry state of Americas rail infrastructure today, this also makes me weep although today theyd just be delivered via truck.