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Sears Modern Homes

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fabricated houses sold primarily through mail order

Cover of 1922 Sears Modern Homes catalog

Sears Modern Homes were houses sold primarily through mail order catalog by Sears, Roebuck and Co., an American retailer.

From 1908 to 1942, Sears sold more than 70,000 of these houses in North America.[1] Sears Modern Homes were purchased primarily by customers in East Coast and Midwest states but have been located as far south as Florida, as far west as California, and as far north as Alaska and Canada.[2] No complete record of their locations was left by Sears when they closed the Modern Homes program but current-day researchers are compiling a database of those that have been found so far and the list continues to grow.[3][4]

Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. Most included the latest comforts and conveniences available to house buyers in the early part of the twentieth century, such as central heating, indoor plumbing, telephone, and electricity.

Primarily shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included most of the materials needed to build a house. Once delivered, many of these houses were assembled by the new homeowner, relatives, friends and neighbors, in a fashion similar to the traditional barn-raisings of farming families.[5] Other homeowners relied on local carpenters or contractors to assemble the houses. In some cases, Sears provided construction services to assemble the homes. Some builders and companies purchased houses directly from Sears to build as model homes, speculative homes, or homes for customers or employees. Although most shipments came by rail, newspaper advertisements in the late 1920s and early 1930s showed Sears offering truck delivery to buyers living within a 35-mile (56 km) radius of their Newark, New Jersey, plant and their Norwood, Ohio, Sash & Door company.[6]

Sears discontinued its Modern Homes catalog after 1940 with sales through local sales offices continuing 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.

History<br>[edit]

Sears Magnolia in Benson, North Carolina

Catalog image and floorplan of Sears Magnolia model

1908–1940<br>[edit]

In 1906, Frank W. Kushel, a Sears manager, was given responsibility for the catalog company's unwieldy, unprofitable building-materials department. Sales were down and excess inventory languished in warehouses. 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. That year, the Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan, offered the first kit homes through mail order.

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 to $2,890 (about $13,000 to $104,000 today). The first mail order for a Sears house was filled that year. As its mail-order catalogs were already sent to millions of homes, Sears had a distinct advantage over other kit-home competitors.

As sales grew, Sears expanded its production, shipping, and sales offices to locations across the country. To provide the materials for the Modern Homes division, Sears operated a lumber mill in Cairo, Illinois. In 1912, Sears purchased the Norwood Sash and Door Company in Norwood, Ohio (primarily used for fabrication of doors, windows, and other millwork), and, in 1926, opened a large lumber yard in Port Newark, New Jersey.[7] The ability to mass-produce the materials used in Sears homes reduced manufacturing costs and consequently the kits' price tags.

Precut framing lumber pieces, an innovation pioneered by Aladdin, were first offered by Sears in 1916. Precut lumber was cut to the appropriate lengths and angles based on where the framing lumber would be used in the house, and letter/number codes were stamped on the pre-cut lumber pieces, coordinating with labels found on the blueprints for the house.[8] Before 1916, the home builder had to cut their Sears-supplied lumber to appropriate lengths. These pre-1916 houses are generally considered catalog houses, not kit houses. Pre-cut...