national database of sears homes national database of sears homes

While the bathroom and kitchen of this 1920 Sears mail-order house in Munhall called The Crescent have been updated, most of the homes original features remain unchanged, said owner Molly Harbst, who learned it was among the first homes built in her Homestead Park neighborhood. Thank you for visiting! 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. 02, 2023 : History: Catalogs: Homes: Products: Brands: Stores: People Historic Homes : . Among those are: Sears Modern Homes can also be found in historic districts listed in the National Register of Historic Places: According to Carolyn Fraser's Pulitzer-winning book, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the house that Rose Wilder Lane built for her parents, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo Wilder, at Rocky Ridge Farm in Missouri was from a Sears kit. There were less people, but quality housing that could get built easily was a must for the quickly-growing population as World War I veterans came home and started families, and an immigration boom was taking place. In their own way, houses with Craftsman-style design elements often managed their own form of ebullient excess such as Modern Home No. Action in the Community Through Service Homeless Shelter. It is unknown whether any were purchased or built. 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 share their names with others who might be interested in Damn, it was like Stardew Valley! Here are both of these models in the 1911/12 Sears Modern Homes catalog. Some of these homes were based on models offered in the Sears Modern Homes catalog. So, Can We See Some Philly Suburbs Sears Houses? 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. 159. Lets find out! ", "How to Properly Identify a Sears Magnolia", "Have You Seen This Kit Schoolhouse? But it was a different story when Sears began selling house building kits in 1908. Where Are The Rest Of The Sears Houses In The U.S.? If home is where the heart is, then those living in houses built from Sears mail-order kits may have fallen head-over-heels. Sears mail-order house kits can often be identified by the shipping labels that were placed on the backside of trim. 3 in U.S. with, at todays count, 1,963 Sears homes found.. 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. 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. contacting them by clicking on their name. 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. Here is one at 17 Hill Street, Villa Park. Several Sears Modern Homes are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Orders were placed by mail, the See more 5,581 people like this 5,890 people follow this https://www.searshouses.com/ cyn.catanzaro@gmail.com I've always seen this one in the catalogs, and thought it was kind of ungainly in proportions, but we hadn't found one before this one this is a pretty good match, though not perfect, but, in the days before pre-cut, we are more likely to see some modifications to the models. took off, many builders started offering everything from ready-made prehab homes to foundations and blueprints. Lara and Cindy were joined by Andrew Mutch, who is based out of his own Sears house, in Novi, Michigan. 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. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that certain elements of the house construction be done professionally and varied depending on where the house was constructed. Simple theme. But before all this, having to get your own home built was more common instead of getting on a waitlist for a HUD-subsidized tract home or buying one secondhand from the current occupant. 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 . 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. , 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. Enjoy! Here is one of the eleven examples in La Porte: This early version of the No. Images are available More than 100 years of stories, product and brand histories, photographs, catalog images and more are now available online. On another block of W 11th Street, there is an example of the Sears Modern Home No. This Sears mail-order kit home in McCandless is owned by Normajean Moser. At one point, I realized that I needed to organize a list of online catalog resources, so I put together this blog post, which has links to catalogs not only from Daily Bungalow and AntiqueHome, but to the many catalogs uploaded on another key resource, Archive.org (have you donated lately?). 3 in U.S. with, at today's count, 1,963 Sears homes. Rebecca lives in Elgin, Illinois, and undertook a huge research project, to find, and document, kit houses in that town. national database of sears homescalgary police organizational chart. Would you mind messaging me with an address, so that we can add your Sears house to our (private) national database? A kick-off celebration was held March 3, 2023, for the newly renamed BMO Stadium. 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. They came in all sizes and price points before buying a ready-made house or building kit of your choosing became relegated to the tiny house movement if you dont have the resources to buy a plot of land and build from there. 5008". Basic cross-gabled two-story farmhouses are to be found almost everywhere in towns and cities as well as many rural areas throughout the United States. 110 (, 1524 2nd Street, La Porte, Indiana earliest version of the Sears No. national database of sears homes. Advertisements for Sears Modern Homes appeared through May 1942. Weve got so much fucking housing just sitting there that NO ONE should be condemned to homelessness. Sears Magnolia was also known as Model #2089. After several years, Sears also began assigning names to the various models. 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. Researching Historic Kit and Plan Book Homes, We started looking around La Porte, Indiana, in 2015. For this week's listing of the week, we decided to find seven charming Sears Catalog homes you can actually buy today. In addition to home building costs being up to 40% lower than traditional building, you also had the option to bring your own blueprints to Sears to get them modified for far less than itd comparatively cost to go to a builder or architect today. However, in La Porte, we've also found five examples* of houses that look like a great match for the No. 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. Lara was joined by researcher Cindy Catanzaro, who researches especially in Ohio, and writes the blog. 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). [16], There was no single architect for the Sears designs. 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? Here is the catalog image, from the 1911/12 catalog: And here are two examples in La Porte. 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. Capture from Google Streetview. 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. To see a variety of models similar to the Mitchell, that were offered during the kit-house era, see this article. Through those two resources, we can see not only kit-house catalogs, but also lumber-yard plan books, which offered house plans to those who were building their homes, in the 19-teens through 1930s, in the traditional method, of hiring a contractor, and buying the building resources locally. Others were not but were still pre-cut kit homes built from plans and materials from Sears. Ive visited New Orleans several times and love the style of the buildings there. Let's take a look at a comparison of that side, for these two models: Also, the front view shows us how the front porch roof connects to the house differently, across these two models. Search. Because these homes were constructed using pre-cut lumber and plans provided by Sears, these homes can be considered to be "Sears Modern Homes". The first mail order for a Sears house was filled that year. CNDDB Maps and Data. Instead, shipping labels were affixed to the backside of trim that identified properties. At Greenlawn Cemetery, near the Hampton Roads waterfront in the Newport News, Virginia, area, the cemetery office building is a 1936 Sears Modern Home. Other companies such as Aladdin sold mail-order homes, but thats all they sold, Chabot said. I think that we had only a handful of houses already on the list a few. 217 (early Starlight), Sears Modern Home No, 126, on the left, at 808 W 11th Street, La Porte, Indiana, On the right, Sears Modern Home No. If those were the top sellers, no model could catch the Argyle at that rate. ), or streets that have houses with no designated house number (yes, again! Identifying Sears Homes has become a pastime among history enthusiasts because of their sturdy structure, the do-it-yourself nature of construction, and the popular architectural design concepts. Following is a list of Sears Homes enthusiasts who have agreed I have the Farnum in New Brighton PA. 1929. Chabot can help people identify if their home was built from a Sears kit if they provide her with an address of the property through the House Seekers website, which also has links to catalogs produced by the company and other sellers. 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. It's also possible that some local builder just put together a similar design, to compete with the Sears houses being built in town, but, some of these examples are on blocks of streets that are lined with Sears houses from this early spec offering by Sears. Text information is available through RareFind 5 and provides essential information about special status species and occurrences. 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. [37] Similiar references are made to boyhood homes of Richard Nixon and Warren Buffett. 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. However, many houses described as Sears Homes are not true Sears Homes, being either the product of another kit home manufacturer or not a kit home at all. One of the early Sears House researchers that our group still relies on for her expertise in the D.C. housing market, is D.C. realtor Catarina Bannier (Bannier & Sandalow). muhammad ali i am the greatest speech transcript . Statewide, about 1,900 Sears catalog homes have been identified. Asphalt shingles were cheap to manufacture and ship, and easy and inexpensive to install. As its mail-order catalogs were already sent to millions of homes, Sears had a distinct advantage over other kit-home competitors. TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox. I now live in St. Louis, Missouri, and am sometimes asked if there are any Sears houses here. 181, Sears No. PDF See the video of my interview on the St. Louis Business Journal's website. Sears Houses in Elgin, Illinois (Rebecca L. Hunter), BOOK:Houses By Mail -- published by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, BOOK: History and Field Guide to Wardway Homes, Rosemary Thornton's Sears Modern Homes website (use to search for models), Beatrice Lask Thesis: Summary list (Cincinnati Sears Homes). 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. Its not like nowadays where you move, wait for your stuff to arrive, and if youre a. like me, youre pretty much unable to work while you wait for a technician to ensure you have Internet access. So, each house that we find through these records, represents a great deal of digging, and lots of amassed knowledge in how to attack the task because each county's records system is a little different than others. Powered by, Table of Sears Houses in La Porte, Indiana. Park, MD. Related: Floating Chairs and Texas McMansions | McMansions vs Really Big Houses | Strange Mansion in Carmel, Indiana | What is a Mansion. 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. Construction of the houses took nine months which were completed in 1919. 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. While researching the property, Harbst learned it was among the first homes built in the boroughs Homestead Park neighborhood. Kmart History | Search Archives | Sears Holdings Alumni | sears.com | kmart.com : Thursday, Mar. 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. 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. The houses, comprising eight models, were all built in a 12-block area known as the Standard Addition. 1. And it led me to dig a little deeper into the history of my community.. The CNDDB is comprised of two data components: Text information and spatial information. One key set of homes that we are fortunate to have on our list, comes from the research of noted Architectural Historian, Rebecca L. Hunter. 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. Wonderful, Malissa! 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). 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. [7] Early mortgage loans were typically for 5 to 15 years at 6% to 7% interest.