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The story of Sears begins in 1886, when a railroad station agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota named Richard Sears started selling gold watches at $14 apiece. The next year, he set up shop with watchmaker Alvah Roebuck on Dearborn and Randolph Streets in Chicago. Sears houses were often built in multiples, creating entire homogeneous neighborhoods.
The buyers, Richard and Jill Lane, say that after purchasing the house they became more interested in the history, discovering it was one of only four authenticated Standish models still standing. The exterior, says Mr. Lane, a 54-year-old principal in a commercial real-estate firm, has classic style and curb appeal. Sold from the pages of a catalog, these houses had high-quality materials and were shipped to far-away places. Today, real-estate agents say they’re seeing more listings emphasizing a kit-home provenance. The Ohio bungalow restored by Sam and Kathleen is the ‘Argyle’, a Sears bestseller with just 1,008 square feet but many nice features, inside and out. By 1919, it was $1,479, and by 1923, it cost $2,349— still an exceptional value.
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The Vallonia was one of those 24 Sears Homes with that unique column arrangement. Sears homes built during the 1930s often have a small circled “SR” cast into the bathtub in the lower corner and on the underside of the kitchen or bathroom sink. Using grantor records, you may find a few Sears mortgages and thus, a few Sears homes. Advertisement for knocked down kits for summer cottages, in Popular Mechanics, May 1908.
Sears reported that more than 70,000 of these homes were sold in North America between 1908 and 1940. More than 370 different home designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes were offered over the program’s 33-year history. Sears Catalog Homes were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Company, an American retailer. In addition, some companies, including Sears, Montgomery Ward, Gordon-Van Tine, and Harris Brothers, offered cash discounts and generous mortgage terms. For most homeowners, the complete cost of building a kit house was about double the catalog price, allowing for the construction of a foundation and labor costs. The price of land or a city lot on which to build would be another expense.
Sears Wish Book
The Modern Homes mortgage program peaked in the late 1920s but showed increasing signs of strain as the full effects of the Great Depression hit. The Modern Homes program was finally defeated by tens of millions of dollars in mortgage defaults, as well as pre-World War II shortages of building materials. He was convinced that the building supplies could be sold at a profit if storage could be centralized and the goods distributed more rationally—and if there was a little extra incentive for buying them.
Gloria Henn recently put the 1,584-square-foot, four-bedroom kit house her husband’s grandfather built in the 1950s in Mashpee, Mass., on the market for $1.295 million. She knows it’ll likely be torn down since the location, right on Cape Cod’s Waquoit Bay, is more enticing than the house, which has no heat and sits on a cinder block foundation. "My neighbors are upset with me. They say I should donate it," she says.
Over-the-Top Fashion Trends From the Victorian Era
The lumber was cut to size at the building site before being assembled by a local builder. There is a tendency to think of the “Sears House” as a monolithic entity, but there were actually many different Sears catalogs that offered houses and auxiliary buildings, such as garages. Others continued to sell just lumber and building parts, which had been a Sears staple. Distinctions among the buildings offered, the quality of the materials, and the construction methods used can be confusing.
From 1908 to 1940, Sears sold between 70,000 to 75,000 homes. 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. 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. House-plan books like those from Palliser & Palliser date back to the Victorian period; full construction drawings were offered, and sometimes also a millwork package.
The 'Wish Book' topped 600 Pages.
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. Plumbing, electrical fixtures, and heating systems were options that could be ordered at additional cost; they were many families' first steps to modern HVAC systems, kitchens, and bathrooms. During the Modern Homes program, large quantities of asphalt shingles became available. Asphalt shingles were cheap to manufacture and ship, and easy and inexpensive to install. 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.
There were actually six large companies that made kit houses, but none had the marketing clout of Sears and its famous catalog. Another company, Aladdin, sold enough homes to the Bristol Brass. Co. in 1916 to fill four blocks near the factory in Bristol, Conn.
Later, Sears constructed a second mill in Port Newark, New Jersey and purchased the Norwood Sash and Door Company in Norwood, Ohio. The ability to mass-produce the materials used in Sears homes reduced manufacturing costs, which allowed Sears to pass along the savings in lower prices for customers. Mr. Mutch is part of a small network of kit-house enthusiasts across the country who are intent on documenting the remaining kit houses. Kit homes appealed to buyers at the time because they were affordable, included quality materials and could be shipped to faraway places.
Sears discontinued its Modern Homes catalog after 1940, though sales through local sales offices continued into 1942. Years later, the sales records related to home sales were destroyed during a corporate house cleaning. As only a small percentage of these homes were documented when built, finding these houses today often requires detailed research to properly identify them. 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. Determining which company manufactured a particular catalog and kit home may require additional research to determine the origin of that home. A few years later, all sales records were destroyed during a corporate house cleaning.
Instead of abandoning the sale of millwork and other building parts, why not change the way these goods were sold? What if customers could pick a plan for their dream house from a Sears catalog? One order could include everything—nails and screws, paint and roof shingles, windows and doors, woodwork, staircases, and mantelpieces. Early mortgage loans were typically for 5 to 15 years at 6% to 7% interest. While financing through Sears helped many homeowners purchase homes, many of those purchasers defaulted during the ensuing Great Depression. The company was forced to liquidate $11 million in defaulted debt.
In 2017 alone, Sears Holdings closed more than 350 Sears and Kmart stores nationwide, with an additional 60 to be closed in early 2018. When it opened in 1973, the 110-story Sears Tower, at 1,454 feet in height, dominated the Chicago skyline as the tallest building in the world—a distinction it held for 25 years. Sears announced plans to build a new headquarters in downtown Chicago in 1969. At the time, Sears was the largest retailer in the world with approximately 350,000 employees.
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