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Tin was noisy duringstorms, looked unattractive, and required a skilled roofer, while wood washighly flammable. Asphalt shingles, however, were cheap to manufacture and ship,as well as easy and inexpensive to install. It was that interaction that motivated him to research Sears kit homes.
The end of the Sears catalog era.
Staff then packaged the necessary materials and shipped the loaded cartons to a buyer’s address. Most of the millwork was fulfilled by the Sears-owned “Norwood Sash and Door Company” of Cincinnati, Ohio. However, building materials like millwork could be purchased separately from Sears so millwork with shipping labels is not, by itself, a definitive indicator of a Sears Modern house. Many included the latest technology available to house buyers in the early part of the twentieth century, such as central heating, indoor plumbing, and electricity.
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The smaller houses sometimes combined living and dining rooms, while the smallest made do with a built-in eating nook or the kitchen table. For these, Sears provided building plans and specifications, along with the lumber and any other materials needed. The shipment included everything from nails, screws, and paint to prebuilt building parts, such as staircases and dining nooks. It did not include masonry, such as bricks and cement blocks, which would be cheaper to procure locally than to send by rail.
Sears Merchandise Building Tower
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. Other homeowners relied on local carpenters or contractors to assemble the houses. In some cases, Sears provided construction services to assemble the homes. In the 1920s extensive athletic facilities were added to the complex, as an encouragement for after-work socialization to keep employee morale high. Included were a clubhouse and tennis courts, and the Sears Department of the YMCA.
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.
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The merchandise tower, the only surviving element of the 3-million-square-foot Merchandise Building, is to the west, and the Power House and Administration Building are to the east. Beyond those two, fronting on West Arthington and Spaulding Avenue, is the former Merchandise Laboratory.[1] These buildings were built along the former right-of-way of the Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad (now CSX). Many manufacturers, including Sears, took plans submitted by customers and manufactured custom homes.
In 1940, because of loan defaults and shortages of building materials, the Modern Homes program ended. Between 1908 and 1940, nearly 75,000 homeowners picked out a house from the Sears, Roebuck and Company’s Modern Homes catalog and built their houses from the materials that arrived a few weeks later. The houses ranged in size from small cottages without a bathroom to multi-story homes complete with sleeping porches and porte-cocheres. Everything you – or your favorite contractor – needed to build the home, except for stone and bricks, was included in your purchase.
The Amazing Collection of Sears Homes in the Midwest
Events included an annual track and field competitions, and company baseball teams. By the 1890s, Richard W. Sears, a backwoods Minnesotan who understood agrarian life, expanded his mail-order enterprise to cater specifically to rural Americans, offering everything from fishing tackle to eyeglasses to baby carriages. “In rural America, you often had a few books, your Bible and the Sears catalog,” says Franz. In the early 20th century, when the average life span was 47, Sears exploited a scared, sick and vulnerable generation with countless sham remedies. In 1886, a 22-year-old station agent on the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway purchased a shipment of unwanted gold watches from a local jeweler. Wristwatches had just hit the market, and since station agents needed to track train schedules, the young man thought he might hawk the watches to his fellow railway workers.
A Sears Roebuck house ©
Sears stopped the mortgage program in 1934 as a result of the Great Depression. The Modern Homes program itself ended in 1940, undone by loan defaults and pre-World War II shortages of building materials. Like many other retailers, Sears was severely impacted by the Great Depression.
Home sales slowly recovered as the United States emerged from the Great Depression. As sales grew, Sears expanded its production, shipping, and sales offices to locations across the U.S. To provide the materials needed for the Modern Homes division, Sears operated a lumber mill in Cairo, Illinois. Sears prided itself on offering floor plans that were both efficient and attractive, maximizing the usability of very limited space.
Featured in catalogs from 1912 to 1929, the Westly was one of Sears’ most popular designs. It still shines in countless towns across the country by the hundreds, if not thousands. These stamps are normally located on or near the ends of pieces of framing timber. However, these stamps were not used on lumber shipped before 1916, when Sears first started offering pre-cut lumber. Because these homes were constructed using pre-cut lumber and plans provided by Sears, these homes can be considered to be “Sears Modern Homes”. Many of these post 1940 homes were based on models from the 1940 and earlier Sears catalogs but not all were, leading to debate over whether these homes qualify as “Sears Modern Homes”.
Available in a variety of styles and at a range of price points, these DIY kit houses would arrive via railroad boxcar as precut and then the buyer would have them assembled. Pattern-book houses are structures for which architects would sell stock plans for homes to help cut costs. Many pattern-book houses can be found throughout the Minne Lusa neighborhood. Everett S. Dodds was an Omaha architect who sold stock plans, and History Nebraska says 78 homes are attributed to him. The Sears home mortgage program started out as one of their keys to success.
The Aladdin Company was just one competitor already testing the waters with such an idea, and Sears quickly followed the same path. Some of these homes were based on models offered in the Sears Modern Homes catalog. Others were not but were still pre-cut kit homes built from plans and materials from Sears. The first Sears, Roebuck & Co. calendar hit mailboxes in 1894 and was followed over the next few years by specialty catalogs and color sections. Customers would receive a railcar filled with precut lumber and the necessary supplies and instructions to build a home, or hire a company to perform the assembly, at a fraction of the cost of a custom-built house.
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