national database of sears homes

Fast forward to this past summer --early August of 2022. 159 has two full stories on that non-porch side of the house. The house was in original condition and was never modified while we lived there - it was sold in 2003 or early 2004. 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. Images are available House was moved to Carbondale, CO in about 1972, Still trying to find more info.. Harbst said it wasnt until after she bought the house that she learned homes were once sold through mail-order catalogs. Kmart History | Search Archives | Sears Holdings Alumni | sears.com | kmart.com : Thursday, Mar. Shipped by railroad boxcar, and then usually trucked to a home site, the average Sears Modern Home kit had about 25 tons of materials, with more than 30,000 parts. "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. national database of sears homes - dowdcreative.com She said she didnt know the house was built from a kit ordered from a catalog until after she bought it. It wasnt until she was in her 20s that Chabot learned about the homes history. This is the Lakeview area where we found most of the examples of the 115, 171, and 159, as well as a number of examples of the No. You can find catalog images for these models, in the links on the table at the end of this blog post: Also on W Johnson Road, we have new information from Nancy, who contacted me to let me know that she grew up in the Sears house shown below, a Sears. national database of sears homescalgary police organizational chart. In real life, with its two full stories, the whole house is a much taller house than the Rossville/171 or the Greenview/115. If any of you have ever been interested in coming to see me do a kit home Despite being prefab, they got more character than the endless sea of suburban eyesores we got out there now. 162 Sears houses still standing, including those in the city of Alexandria. I'm not surprised that the Argyle is likely the best seller; it had a long run and was as good-looking as it was practical. presentation, nows your chance! Sold for 12 years and discontinued in 1928. Chabot runs a national website dedicated to gathering and sharing information about Sears mail-order homes. Dover, Chateau, and Lexington models are particularly plentiful there! Sears Modern Homes are something we totally need to bring back from the past for this. It's likely that other Sears models can be traced to him as well. [16], There was no single architect for the Sears designs. 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. Documented Sears houses have been found across the United States and in a few locations in Canada. It looks almost like a Sears, And, finally, we have this pretty rare model, the Sears. In 1906, Frank W. Kushel, a Sears manager, was given responsibility for the catalog company's unwieldy, unprofitable building-materials department. We have three on our list in Glenside -- one on Cedar, one on Tyson, and one on Edge Hill Rd. of the original Sears homes built from kits are still standing today. Ephemera can help identify a house as a Sears Home. Enjoy! According to the catalog image, both models have only a partial porch at the front of the house. CNDDB Maps and Data. Our research team especially loves searching Pennsylvania for Sears houses because there are so many there, Chabot said. From 1908 to 1942, Sears sold more than 70,000 of these houses in North America, by the company's count. national database of sears homes. Its as sturdy as a house as Ive ever seen. national database of sears homes - nyomkovetes-blog.hu What was up with this particular model of home building, and are there any original Sears houses left? national database of sears homes42 ft gibson houseboat. Its not like nowadays where you move, wait for your stuff to arrive, and if youre a work-at-home like me, youre pretty much unable to work while you wait for a technician to ensure you have Internet access. Some of these homes were based on models offered in the Sears Modern Homes catalog. Between 1908 and 1940, Sears Roebuck and Co. published specialty catalogs offering house plans and building materials. Compare house designs to original catalog images. Spatial information is available through GIS downloads or can be viewed in the BIOS Viewer. From that, we have to try to connect all of that to an existing street address. Many of these homes were built in Sears planned "Home Club Plan" developments in New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.[9][10][11]. is selling shipping container homes for about $50,000 a pop and Amazon is also selling prefab tiny houses at a variety of sizes and price points. Another key figure in the original research into Sears kit houses, was a woman named Beatrice Lask. [5] The method was originally named in the sense that the structure was light and could be lifted away like a balloon. Images of Sears Homes 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. Before 1916, the home builder had to cut their Sears-supplied lumber to appropriate lengths. This Sears mail-order house named The Crescent was built in Munhall in 1920, according to owner Molly Harbst. 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. When the tiny house movement took off, many builders started offering everything from ready-made prehab homes to foundations and blueprints. Welcome to the New NSCAA. . Stamped lumber: Most easily found in unfinished spaces like a basement or attic, framing members were stamped with a letter and a number. 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. You can see that La Porte, Indiana is mentioned as one of the "built at" locations: We found four examples of what we believe to be the model No. Our national database of Sears houses in the U.S. has over 13,500 homes on it, and, after Ohio and Illinois, Pennsylvania is No. . The best guidebook to the basic history of the Sears Modern Homes program, is the book, Houses By Mail, put out by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and written by Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl. I see you posted about the origins of Hollywood three years ago! Some models of Sears homes were very similar in design to models offered by other kit home manufacturers or through plan books. Tailor the data to your community to help preserve your local assets or explore national data to better understand the need for affordable housing and the dynamics of the publicly supported housing market. No built examples have been found of some of the least popular models. Balloon frames could be built faster and generally only required one carpenter. 199 models here in La Porte, are somewhat tweaked in their design, but we still do think that they are examples of that model. , in addition to Aladdin and Montgomery Ward homes. 171 often has a full front porch that ends up extending all the way to the left side of the house. As I detailed in the account of the rise and fall of the Sears empire, this literally led them to become the largest retailer in America because they had so many burners going at onceand their Modern Homes kits, and even the home buying process itself, were part of that in addition to catalog and retail sales. Sears offered 370 models over the 32 years it sold houses by catalog. It even halted sales of houses themselves for a short time before restarting sales. ", "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. Damn, it was like Stardew Valley! 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. [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. Our team did some traveling around streets inside Philadelphia, in neighborhoods like Oxford Circle, Rhawnhurst, and Roxborough, to name a few, and added about 43 houses to our list, from these neighborhoods. So, I'll just post a nice selection here. Catarina is quite well informed about Sears houses in the D.C. area, but also has researched the origins of many of the Lewis Homes kit homes in the area. Following is a list of Sears Homes enthusiasts who have agreed to share their names with others who might be interested in contacting them by clicking on their name. The larger Victorian-style houses that were already there and scant in number were out of reach for working class first-time home buyers. Teen hikers rescued after days stuck in California snowstorm Simple theme. According to a review written by Mary Ann O'Boyle of Takoma Park, Maryland, her Sears home feels "unabashedly American, the kind of house you see in movies about the good old days" and "allows me to connect with the past". [37] Similiar references are made to boyhood homes of Richard Nixon and Warren Buffett. The houses, comprising eight models, were all built in a 12-block area known as the Standard Addition. Boxabl is selling shipping container homes for about $50,000 a pop and Amazon is also selling prefab tiny houses at a variety of sizes and price points. 168/Matoka, 301 Weller Avenue, La Porte, Indiana probable Sears Modern Home No. My uncle mentioned that he had found some shipping labels from Sears in the house and when we asked my grandmother about it, she said: Oh, yes, we ordered it from the Sears catalog, Chabot said. These stamps are normally located on or near the ends of pieces of framing timber. 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. 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. the case of the Anstett family of Torrington, Connecticut. Newport Beach home dangling on edge after cliff collapses At Greenlawn Cemetery, near the Hampton Roads waterfront in the Newport News, Virginia, area, the cemetery office building is a 1936 Sears Modern Home. 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. Originally marketed as the. The suburbs of Philadelphia are not the only places where we find Sears houses, by the way. In fact, the No. Others were not but were still pre-cut kit homes built from plans and materials from Sears. Because the Modern Homes division sales records were destroyed, there is no way to definitively verify the number of Sears houses that still exist. 06/16/2022 . Because the various kit home companies often copied plan elements or designs from each other, there are a number of catalog and kit models from different manufacturers that look similar or identical to models offered by Sears. Here is the catalog image, from the 1911/12 catalog: And here are two examples in La Porte. 506 W 11th Street, La Porte, Indiana probable Sears No. There is some debate about whether some homes from Sears that were built in 1941 and 1942 qualify as Sears Modern Homes. 2023 Trib Total Media | All Rights Reserved. Residential construction was drastically down nationwide due to the Great Depression. Sears Modern Homes were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Co., an American retailer. The kit was greatly modified by Lane's ambitious designs. 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. Homes built after 1916 can be identified as Sears kit homes by numbers stamped on the timbers. 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. Philadelphia Inquirer: Sears Homes In the Philly S Where are the Sears Houses - February 2023 Edition, The Strange Case of the Wandering Bungalow, DC House Cat Chiming In - Historic Mail-Order Homes, Same Name, Different House Part 2 - From Aurora to the Elmwood, 1926 Sears Special Supplement from AntiqueHome.org. Open to the public. 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. Normajean Moser of McCandless owns a Walton model that was purchased from the Sears Modern Home catalog. Your comment will appear after it has been previewed and approved by the blog author. After all, future generations became more transient out of circumstance or in light of the digital nomad movement and taking advantage of technology in general, more mobile by choice. One of the biggest questions that researchers have been wanting to answer is: What is the Top-Selling Sears House of All Time? Sears Lewiston: A Sears Model Home in New Jersey - Sears House Seeker The nine easy signs follow: 1) Look for stamped lumber in the basement or attic. Remember when Sears sold houses? See some of Ann Arbor's kit homes - mlive We have just over 200 Sears houses on our list, that came from Rebecca's research project in Elgin (it also included kit houses from other companies, that she was able to identify -- we've added those to our lists for those companies, as well). Action in the Community Through Service Homeless Shelter. Other models only appeared for one year. This Sears mail-order kit home in McCandless is owned by Normajean Moser. [5] Early balloon structures were very basic, to enable home buyers to assemble them independently and also because designers had yet to see the implications the method held.[5]. Statewide, about 1,900 Sears catalog homes have been identified. The iron strapping itself can be strait or curved, but the curlicue is always there, if it's iron strapping from Sears. Weve got so much fucking housing just sitting there that NO ONE should be condemned to homelessness. People always seemed surprised to learn that Sears sold home kits. Charleston, West Virginia is a hotspot for Sears model homes, in addition to Aladdin and Montgomery Ward homes. 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 love her for giving us this to quote over and over again and for the many Sears houses that she has added to our list. 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. 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. muhammad ali i am the greatest speech transcript . Park, MD. Please contact me if you would like a free We certainly imagine that the houses have been retro-fitted with one, at this point. Lara was joined by researcher Cindy Catanzaro, who researches especially in Ohio, and writes the blog. If home is where the heart is, then those living in houses built from Sears mail-order kits may have fallen head-over-heels. Researching Historic Kit and Plan Book Homes, We started looking around La Porte, Indiana, in 2015. There were about 132 million people by the time Sears stopped selling Sears Modern Homes kits in 1940. . New York ranks fourth on the list with 1,679. You'll also notice that the No. Our research would not be possible, without online resources for Sears Modern Homes catalogs, and the catalogs for other kit-house companies, such as Gordon-Van Tine, Wardway, Aladdin, Sterling, Lewis, and Bennett. Also, homes in southern Ohio may have financing documents through the "Norwood Sash and Door Company" of Norwood, Ohio. 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. The truth is out there, and I think you've found it! The. That's not shown anywhere for this model, so we can't say for sure if these are examples of the No. easier. The article mentioned Sears having sold 50 houses in La Porte, Indiana but, interestingly, Sears had actually provided the funding and the houses, knowing that the area was in need of housing right away, and offered to have the houses paid for on time. 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. Were most Sears Houses built by the owners? You usually just left with the clothes on your back and a few trunks, and that was it. Sales were down, and there was excess inventory languishing in warehouses. The original "Sears Modern Homes" community page on Facebook, for those interested in Sears homes. However, as you can see in the photos above, that showed the sides of the house, the Rossville/No. One of the most expensive models was the Magnolia, a 10-room Colonial-style house with. Construction of the houses took nine months which were completed in 1919. However, based on what the experts said in that Atlas Obscura piece, youre most likely to find Sears homes in places where railroad stations once stood (or are lucky to still have) and where Sears factories had a major role on the local economy, like Cincinnati. Species: 4,512; Preserves: 238; Sightings: 95,174 . I love finding these houses and learning more about them, the different models that were sold and the people who bought them.. Sears provided "capital and materials", on the condition that lots and foundations were already in place. Argyles also have a tendency to hide. Another old model found predominantly in that Lakeview area, was the. Text information is available through RareFind 5 and provides essential information about special status species and occurrences. 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. 1232 click. I think that we had only a handful of houses already on the list a few. If those were the top sellers, no model could catch the Argyle at that rate. 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? PDF See the video of my interview on the St. Louis Business Journal's website. national database of sears homes. Without complete sales records, we cannot say definitively that the Sears Argyle was the top seller. Sears Homes 1908-1914 That is unique to Sears. Thanks to the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, the NRDB will continue to be updated and available at least through 2023, and in some form, beyond that. 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. Because these homes were constructed using pre-cut lumber and plans provided by Sears, these homes can be considered to be "Sears Modern Homes". Argyles also tend to get messed up and hard to recognize like this one at 6818 N. Oriole, Chicago or this one at 1302 Edgewood, Lake Forest. . some ch Don't miss this never before seen catalog from Sears. For more information on who we are, and what we do, visit our website: All photos in these blog posts are the property of the author of this blog- link to this blog. 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. 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. Sears, Roebuck and Company's Modern Homes program began in 1908 and ended in 1940. There were about 132 million people by the time Sears stopped selling Sears Modern Homes kits in 1940. [2] No comprehensive list of their locations exists.[3]. within a fe A very special, authenticated Aladdin home just hit the market in Takoma New York state is 4th, with 1,679 houses found. . But who knows, maybe well see tiny shipping container homes in a museum someday after we take back the rest of the real estate after the revolution. Betcone spoke of how housing styles were drastically changing and how many customers wanted more efficient, streamlined designs. Park, MD. , something that piqued my interest was the idea that you could buy literal houses from the catalog. Sales peaked in 1929, just before the Great Depression. I saw a recent article in The Star Ledger about Sears Homes that mentioned your blog. Knowing the limitations of a newspaper article, I know that he will only be able to show one or two house photos, so I thought that I would highlight a few that we have found, through our research.