People Used To Order Sears ‘Home Kits’ From A Catalog In The Early 1900s And Some Are Still Standing Today
While these days we don’t think twice about ordering all kinds of things online, with giants like Amazon offering pretty much anything you could possibly imagine shipped to your doorstep, the mail-order concept goes back much further than you might think, and you could even get an entire house delivered by mail.
Image credits: Sears Archives
Sears, once the biggest retailer in the U.S. but which recently filed for bankruptcy, revolutionized home-ownership and kick-started the American dream for thousands by offering affordable ‘home kits,’ arriving by railroad in pieces that people would put together themselves. With 400 types to choose from in a range of budgets, the mail-order homes proved to be a massive hit, with 75,000 Sears houses all over the USA between 1908 and 1940.
Image credits: Sears Archives
The scheme was an impressive foreshadow of today’s Amazon and Ikea, done on a massive scale and over a century ago. Sears catalog was a cultural phenomenon of the times, with a full one-fifth of the population signed up to the 1,400-page tome, offering more than 100,000 items to be delivered to your door.
Image credits: Sears Archives
After receiving and building your kit home, which Sears promised could be done without a carpenter and with only rudimentary skills in less than 90 days, you could then furnish it with brand-new Sears goods, including modern conveniences like central heating, indoor plumbing, and electricity.
Image credits: Sears Archives
Image credits: Sears Archives
Image credits: Sears Archives
Image credits: Sears Archives
The accessibility of these simple homes changed the face of American life, creating independence for newlyweds and young families that were more accustomed to living in multi-generational homes, than buying a house of their own. Many of them are still standing today, a testament to the quality of the materials as well as the DIY skills of many families back then, and have become buildings of historic interest.
Image credits: Sears Archives
The quaint, early 20th century American architecture designs are reminiscent of the movie Pleasantville, and have been known to fetch as much as $1 million on the real estate market!
Image credits: Old House Online
But how do you know if you live in a Sears kit home? The records for where and when many of the houses were delivered have long disappeared, but there are a growing number of enthusiasts that travel the country, searching them out. It is estimated that around 70% of the original Sears kit homes built are still standing today, many of which are located near to the rail yards they were delivered to.
Image credits: Old House Online
Atlas Obscura introduced Sears kit house hunters Wendy and Andrew Mutch, who gave an insight into their hobby which they describe as ‘a bit like birdwatching.’ They often begin their search in areas where Sears or its partners had large factories, as the kit houses are especially common in these areas. Places like Cincinnati and Newark are particular goldmines.
Image credits: Sears Archives
Then they zoom in on railroad areas, focusing on the kind of middle-class communities that remain relatively stable over the years. This means that the houses are less likely to either be renovated beyond recognition or crumbled away into disrepair.
Image credits: Old House Online
Then it’s a matter of driving around neighborhoods, with a copy of Sears kit house bible Houses By Mail, which is a descriptive guide to every model of Sears kit house ever made.
People are beginning to recognize the value of these pieces of American history, faithfully restoring them to their original glory.
“In 1916 my great-grandfather built his house from a Sears home kit. 100 years later we’ve restored it to its original beauty”- this person shared the renovation he did on a Sears ‘kit home’ (Image credits: RealHotSauceBoss)
Image credits: Old House Online
Interior of an original Sears home on Lamar Avenue in Elizabeth (Image credits: the charlotte observer)
Image credits: Sears Archives
Image credits: Sears Archives
Image credits: Sears Archives
Image credits: Sears Archives
Image credits: Sears Archives
Image credits: Sears Archives
Image credits: Sears Archives
Image credits: Sears Archives
How to know if your house is from Sears catalog:
The Arts And Crafts Society lists the following tips to help you identify whether your home might be a Sears kit home or not:
Look for stamped lumber on the exposed beams/joists/rafters in the basement, crawl space or attic.
Image credits: arts-crafts [info in the links]
Inspect the back of millwork (moldings and trim) for shipping labels.
Image credits: arts-crafts
Check the home’s floor plan, footprint (exterior dimensions) and room size, using a field guide to Sears Homes, such as “Finding The Houses That Sears Built” (2004, Gentle Beam Publications).
Image credits: arts-crafts
- Visit the courthouse and inspect old building permits and grantor records.
- Inspect plumbing fixtures for marks, such as “R” or “SR”.
- Look for markings on back of sheet rock.
- Unique column arrangement on front porch and five-piece eave brackets.
- Square block on moldings at staircase landings, where moldings meet at odd angles.
- Verify your home’s construction date. If your home was not built between 1908 – 1940, it can not be a Sears Home.
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Share on FacebookI own a Van Jean home! Still standing strong. Built in 1932. Each window has a little number embedded on small round metal plate that I assume are references for the assembly instructions.
The floor plans and the drawings alone make you want one
Load More Replies...Hmm - "prices do not include cement, brick or plaster"? but an ironing board and medicine case IS included - priorities
Back in the day, these sorts of things were readily-available commodities in virtually every community. Expecting them to be part of the kit would be like expecting a "just-add-water" product to also come with water!
Load More Replies...My house was built with plans and materials from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in the 50s... Same type of idea! 34033898_1...f2f4f8.jpg
A large chunk of my town is made up of these houses. In fact I think my house is probably one since there are several on this street that are nearly identical and you can see where mine has been modified. My house is 100 years old.
Around here the Van Jean is very popular, as well as the one shown in the comparison picture (1916-2016). My aunt lives 2 blocks away in the "Modern Home No. 167". The Fullerton is also all over the place here. I didn't see mine listed, but my house has been so heavily modified, I don't know if I could recognize it!
Load More Replies...This is really cool. I grew up in a construction family so the concept of a pre-cut, pre-measured home that anybody could put together blows me away. Homes today are much, much more complicated and there's zero chance a layman could make one with zero experience. I'd love to demo one of these houses just to see the markings and see how they were put together. Neato. Please BP, less outrage clickbait articles and more cool stuff like this.
They do still exists. A danish company is selling finish inspired houses. You can get them delivered as a 100% do it yourself project og habe them as consultants.https://www.finlandshuse.dk/se-vores-huse/1-plan/anja-273-m2.aspx
Load More Replies...Many years ago, and man named Smith, ordered a Sears catalog house, and built it in Mackinaw City Michigan (at the tip of the mitten). When he died, it went to his daughter and her husband. When she died, he got the house. He had no children with her or his second wife, but he did love and enjoy that house! His nephew bought it when the man was 93. The nephew turned it into a B&B called the Deer Head Lodge. It's beautiful! The nephew also added a whole new part on the right side (as you're looking at it). That man and his wife ran the B&B together for about 20 years. He passed away last August. She is still running the business. They have no children, so when the time comes, it will pass to his nephew, who happens to be my husband.
If you travel around Michigan in the future, there are a number of Sears houses in and around Union Pier. There are owners very dedicated to the love and care of their unique treasures there.
Load More Replies...There are inflation calculators online. 2000 dollars in 1913 amount to around 50.700 dollars in 2019.
Load More Replies...These homes are much more appealing to me than the current "new home" trends. If I could find one of these for sale I would strongly try to purchase it.
It isn't "some". There's a lot of these still standing. Entire neighborhoods in many places.
My Grandmas home was a Sears home. It was just sold 2 weeks ago. It’s crazy to think about it came from a dang sears catalog. Our memories ended with that home after my uncle passed away a year ago. Now, a young couple just purchased their first home. They are going to start a family and have all kinds of memories in that home as well. Eight children were raised in that house along with grandchildren,great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. I hope the new owners keep it just as long if not longer and love it just as much as we all do.
Come visit Cape Charles, Va. A great number of the houses are Sears kit homes
I live in a sears kit house, but haven't found the plans yet. Mine doesn't have a fireplace, but used to have a wood stove, until it started a fire. We used to stay in a cabin in Junction, Texas, that had a Sears wood stove. I even cooked on it as a kid. We really just used it for warmth.
If Ikea did it - imagine trying to work out the instructions
Load More Replies...In Belen, NM there are dozens of them in the old neighborhoods. They are very charming.
I don't know if these were available in Canada (we had sears so I'm assuming so) I recognize a lot styles where I used to live!
They were! There were Eaton's homes--not many of them left https://www.winnipegarchitecture.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Eaton-Plan-Book-of-Ideal-Homes.pdf
Load More Replies..."Still standing". I had one of these - I think it's the Fullerton. It was built in 1927 and I lived there for 21 years. It's a well made house. I got it for $77k with 4 acres of land. Not a fortune
I wonder if my maternal grandparents' home in MI was one of those Sears houses; it strongly resembles the "Fullerton" as shown above. I grew up in homes built in the 1880s and I've seen pictures of them from that period, so not pre-fab houses. I also wonder if there are homes and apartment buildings built today to the old specs with the old materials, not with asbestos, or anything like that, but the sort of pre- World War II plastering and floor laying and so on. My current place is from 1929, and I prefer it to the newer "luxury" apartments I've seen. I've also been in a few McMansions, too, and they're not attractive to me. I imagine to design and build an "old school" house or apartment building today with the actual plaster walls and oak parquet floors and whatnot would cost a lot more than most people are willing to pay.
I live in a town where certain neighborhoods have a large number of Sears & Montgomery Wards houses. Many were built in the 1920's due to a large industrial boom which happened a decade or so before the Great Depression.
I was raised in a Sears home, it is still standing, I loved the big front porch with columns , there are numbers on the floor joices in the basement.
Eatons, a Canadian catalogue retailer that existed from 1869 to 1999, also did kit homes in the early 1900s. Much of Canada was connected only by rail lines, so they'd be dropped off at the nearest railway station and carted home by the buyers. Some still exist today.
Downtown Farmington Hills, MI has a TON of Sears houses and they are so beautiful, and definitely still standing!
We owned one in WV. It wasn't a Sears home (there were a number of home kit companies). Our windows all had numbers stamped into them (for replacing screen windows with storm windows). I loved that home, and was sad to have to move.
That was a common way to keep track of which screens and storms fit to which windows on many kinds of houses, not just kit homes. Back when those windows had to be taken down and put back up again seasonally, requiring climbing ladders while carrying glass storms, either up or down, before the sliding type were produced, the numbered tags kept them straight. On regular "stick-built" homes, the same kind of windows were being used, and whole kits of matching numbered tags could be purchased from your local hardware dealer, building materials dealer, or ordered from building materials catalogs. Or you could order them individually if only one or two needed replacement. The hooks and eyes that fastened the bottom of the storm or screen to the inside of the windowsill to keep them fastened securely to the window so they could not be removed from the outside of the house were also available, as were the hooks that allowed the top of the frame to slide on securely above the window.
Load More Replies...Beautiful, I wish we had this today in my country. It cost about five hundred thousand to a million Rands to buy a small 3 bedroom house.
I used to live in South Bend, Indiana. I think the ENTIRE town is old Sears homes. Some are truly beautiful and have intricate designs. I know quite a few people with 1890-1905 Sears homes that just love them.
South Bend does have lovely homes. But, if they were built in the period you state, they could not be "Sears houses." Sears did not get involved in the kit home business until 1908, and did not provide pre cut kits, with the lumber cut and marked at their mills before shipment until 1916. Even the first kit home company, Aladdin, in Bay City, MI, who started in the business of producing "knocked down" kit homes or any structures of any kind before 1906. There may have been homes produced by using Sears materials before 1906, since the concept of producing kit homes wasn't developed until their lumber department was wallowing in piles of unsold materials and a new department manager first devised the idea of marketing kit homes as a way of selling it in 1906. The first catalog wasnt produced until their homes could be designed, transportation and materials could be assembled and organized based on those designs, and catalogs could be printed and distributed, until 1908.
Load More Replies...I was always told that the first home I lived in as a kid was a Sears house.
My childhood home looked just like the Elsmore house on this page. it is still standing.
I find this so interesting! I have become mildly obsessed with these houses even though I live in England!
My dad’s parents had a Sears home. Much more basic than these 2 bedrooms LR bathroom and kitchen. But the basement was huge. They ended up having 7 children! Boys were in the basement! When my grandmother had to live with one of her daughters, they sold the house. It was over 50-60 years old, and still in good shape. The new family, did some addition changes, but, no doubt it was well built with excellent materials! Too bad builder don’t do that now.
The amazing thing is there are buildings 100yo still existing in USA...
The Hathaway house looks nice. Someone please build me one for original price :)
and people think us millennials are lazy and cant buy houses lol THEY HAD IT SO EASY.
FYI Lily Yang The people that bought these sears homes built them them selves . How exactly is that lazy ??? Get a grip girly
Load More Replies...Someone would make a fortune reissuing the homes. They were gorgeous.
Someone tried, with Aladdin kits, online only, not that long ago. Aladdin started earlier, lasted much longer, including building and providing war materiels for the government during the 1940's, and sold more than Sears did. As homes first got more complicated, they got more expensive, and not as "DIY" as they used to be. As for the contemporary attempt, they didn't make a fortune. They may still be online, but I haven't looked for them in a while.
Load More Replies...is it me or is the lexington the Amityville house?? I need to stop at Sears on the way home, I have enough for most of these houses, as long as the directions and all the screws are present this should be a weekend project. ;)
The first home I lived in as a child was a Sears home. 40 E South St. Worthington, OH 43085
a $2000 house in 1920 will cost $235K today when you factor in all the costs to build it and current gold prices.
I own a Van Jean home! Still standing strong. Built in 1932. Each window has a little number embedded on small round metal plate that I assume are references for the assembly instructions.
The floor plans and the drawings alone make you want one
Load More Replies...Hmm - "prices do not include cement, brick or plaster"? but an ironing board and medicine case IS included - priorities
Back in the day, these sorts of things were readily-available commodities in virtually every community. Expecting them to be part of the kit would be like expecting a "just-add-water" product to also come with water!
Load More Replies...My house was built with plans and materials from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in the 50s... Same type of idea! 34033898_1...f2f4f8.jpg
A large chunk of my town is made up of these houses. In fact I think my house is probably one since there are several on this street that are nearly identical and you can see where mine has been modified. My house is 100 years old.
Around here the Van Jean is very popular, as well as the one shown in the comparison picture (1916-2016). My aunt lives 2 blocks away in the "Modern Home No. 167". The Fullerton is also all over the place here. I didn't see mine listed, but my house has been so heavily modified, I don't know if I could recognize it!
Load More Replies...This is really cool. I grew up in a construction family so the concept of a pre-cut, pre-measured home that anybody could put together blows me away. Homes today are much, much more complicated and there's zero chance a layman could make one with zero experience. I'd love to demo one of these houses just to see the markings and see how they were put together. Neato. Please BP, less outrage clickbait articles and more cool stuff like this.
They do still exists. A danish company is selling finish inspired houses. You can get them delivered as a 100% do it yourself project og habe them as consultants.https://www.finlandshuse.dk/se-vores-huse/1-plan/anja-273-m2.aspx
Load More Replies...Many years ago, and man named Smith, ordered a Sears catalog house, and built it in Mackinaw City Michigan (at the tip of the mitten). When he died, it went to his daughter and her husband. When she died, he got the house. He had no children with her or his second wife, but he did love and enjoy that house! His nephew bought it when the man was 93. The nephew turned it into a B&B called the Deer Head Lodge. It's beautiful! The nephew also added a whole new part on the right side (as you're looking at it). That man and his wife ran the B&B together for about 20 years. He passed away last August. She is still running the business. They have no children, so when the time comes, it will pass to his nephew, who happens to be my husband.
If you travel around Michigan in the future, there are a number of Sears houses in and around Union Pier. There are owners very dedicated to the love and care of their unique treasures there.
Load More Replies...There are inflation calculators online. 2000 dollars in 1913 amount to around 50.700 dollars in 2019.
Load More Replies...These homes are much more appealing to me than the current "new home" trends. If I could find one of these for sale I would strongly try to purchase it.
It isn't "some". There's a lot of these still standing. Entire neighborhoods in many places.
My Grandmas home was a Sears home. It was just sold 2 weeks ago. It’s crazy to think about it came from a dang sears catalog. Our memories ended with that home after my uncle passed away a year ago. Now, a young couple just purchased their first home. They are going to start a family and have all kinds of memories in that home as well. Eight children were raised in that house along with grandchildren,great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. I hope the new owners keep it just as long if not longer and love it just as much as we all do.
Come visit Cape Charles, Va. A great number of the houses are Sears kit homes
I live in a sears kit house, but haven't found the plans yet. Mine doesn't have a fireplace, but used to have a wood stove, until it started a fire. We used to stay in a cabin in Junction, Texas, that had a Sears wood stove. I even cooked on it as a kid. We really just used it for warmth.
If Ikea did it - imagine trying to work out the instructions
Load More Replies...In Belen, NM there are dozens of them in the old neighborhoods. They are very charming.
I don't know if these were available in Canada (we had sears so I'm assuming so) I recognize a lot styles where I used to live!
They were! There were Eaton's homes--not many of them left https://www.winnipegarchitecture.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Eaton-Plan-Book-of-Ideal-Homes.pdf
Load More Replies..."Still standing". I had one of these - I think it's the Fullerton. It was built in 1927 and I lived there for 21 years. It's a well made house. I got it for $77k with 4 acres of land. Not a fortune
I wonder if my maternal grandparents' home in MI was one of those Sears houses; it strongly resembles the "Fullerton" as shown above. I grew up in homes built in the 1880s and I've seen pictures of them from that period, so not pre-fab houses. I also wonder if there are homes and apartment buildings built today to the old specs with the old materials, not with asbestos, or anything like that, but the sort of pre- World War II plastering and floor laying and so on. My current place is from 1929, and I prefer it to the newer "luxury" apartments I've seen. I've also been in a few McMansions, too, and they're not attractive to me. I imagine to design and build an "old school" house or apartment building today with the actual plaster walls and oak parquet floors and whatnot would cost a lot more than most people are willing to pay.
I live in a town where certain neighborhoods have a large number of Sears & Montgomery Wards houses. Many were built in the 1920's due to a large industrial boom which happened a decade or so before the Great Depression.
I was raised in a Sears home, it is still standing, I loved the big front porch with columns , there are numbers on the floor joices in the basement.
Eatons, a Canadian catalogue retailer that existed from 1869 to 1999, also did kit homes in the early 1900s. Much of Canada was connected only by rail lines, so they'd be dropped off at the nearest railway station and carted home by the buyers. Some still exist today.
Downtown Farmington Hills, MI has a TON of Sears houses and they are so beautiful, and definitely still standing!
We owned one in WV. It wasn't a Sears home (there were a number of home kit companies). Our windows all had numbers stamped into them (for replacing screen windows with storm windows). I loved that home, and was sad to have to move.
That was a common way to keep track of which screens and storms fit to which windows on many kinds of houses, not just kit homes. Back when those windows had to be taken down and put back up again seasonally, requiring climbing ladders while carrying glass storms, either up or down, before the sliding type were produced, the numbered tags kept them straight. On regular "stick-built" homes, the same kind of windows were being used, and whole kits of matching numbered tags could be purchased from your local hardware dealer, building materials dealer, or ordered from building materials catalogs. Or you could order them individually if only one or two needed replacement. The hooks and eyes that fastened the bottom of the storm or screen to the inside of the windowsill to keep them fastened securely to the window so they could not be removed from the outside of the house were also available, as were the hooks that allowed the top of the frame to slide on securely above the window.
Load More Replies...Beautiful, I wish we had this today in my country. It cost about five hundred thousand to a million Rands to buy a small 3 bedroom house.
I used to live in South Bend, Indiana. I think the ENTIRE town is old Sears homes. Some are truly beautiful and have intricate designs. I know quite a few people with 1890-1905 Sears homes that just love them.
South Bend does have lovely homes. But, if they were built in the period you state, they could not be "Sears houses." Sears did not get involved in the kit home business until 1908, and did not provide pre cut kits, with the lumber cut and marked at their mills before shipment until 1916. Even the first kit home company, Aladdin, in Bay City, MI, who started in the business of producing "knocked down" kit homes or any structures of any kind before 1906. There may have been homes produced by using Sears materials before 1906, since the concept of producing kit homes wasn't developed until their lumber department was wallowing in piles of unsold materials and a new department manager first devised the idea of marketing kit homes as a way of selling it in 1906. The first catalog wasnt produced until their homes could be designed, transportation and materials could be assembled and organized based on those designs, and catalogs could be printed and distributed, until 1908.
Load More Replies...I was always told that the first home I lived in as a kid was a Sears house.
My childhood home looked just like the Elsmore house on this page. it is still standing.
I find this so interesting! I have become mildly obsessed with these houses even though I live in England!
My dad’s parents had a Sears home. Much more basic than these 2 bedrooms LR bathroom and kitchen. But the basement was huge. They ended up having 7 children! Boys were in the basement! When my grandmother had to live with one of her daughters, they sold the house. It was over 50-60 years old, and still in good shape. The new family, did some addition changes, but, no doubt it was well built with excellent materials! Too bad builder don’t do that now.
The amazing thing is there are buildings 100yo still existing in USA...
The Hathaway house looks nice. Someone please build me one for original price :)
and people think us millennials are lazy and cant buy houses lol THEY HAD IT SO EASY.
FYI Lily Yang The people that bought these sears homes built them them selves . How exactly is that lazy ??? Get a grip girly
Load More Replies...Someone would make a fortune reissuing the homes. They were gorgeous.
Someone tried, with Aladdin kits, online only, not that long ago. Aladdin started earlier, lasted much longer, including building and providing war materiels for the government during the 1940's, and sold more than Sears did. As homes first got more complicated, they got more expensive, and not as "DIY" as they used to be. As for the contemporary attempt, they didn't make a fortune. They may still be online, but I haven't looked for them in a while.
Load More Replies...is it me or is the lexington the Amityville house?? I need to stop at Sears on the way home, I have enough for most of these houses, as long as the directions and all the screws are present this should be a weekend project. ;)
The first home I lived in as a child was a Sears home. 40 E South St. Worthington, OH 43085
a $2000 house in 1920 will cost $235K today when you factor in all the costs to build it and current gold prices.
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