The Houses That Sears Built: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sears Catalog Homes

by Rosemary Thornton

This is a newly revised and expanded version of The Houses That Sears Built. This new edition includes more than 20 new photos of existing Sears Homes throughout the country as well as a plethora of recently discovered information. This major revision also includes reproductions of newly-discovered original documents from the Sears Modern Homes Department as well as compelling interviews with men who worked at the Sears Mill in Cairo, IL. You'll also hear the fascinating stories from Sears Homeowners who actually built their own Sears Kit Home many decades ago! Want to learn how to identify a Sears Home? This book contains new graphics, photos and easy-to-reference bulleted points that will tell you and show you - step by step - how to identify a Sears Home. It also includes four brand new chapters, such as "Chapter 3 - The Amazing Mr. Sears; A Brief Look at The Handsome Genius and His Store, " "Chapter 5 - Milling About Sears Homes, A Look Inside the Sears Mill at Cairo, Illinois, " "Chapter 8 - Homart Homes, The 'Other' Sears Homes , "Chapter 11 - Those Dandy Houses, Testimonials; Trivia and Reminiscences of Building a Sears Modern Home." Since the first edition of The Houses That Sears Built was published in Spring 2002, the author has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning News, PBS's History Detectives, A&E's Biography and WGN-TV News, as well as the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Dallas Morning News and more than 50 regional publications. As a result of this publicity, Ms. Thornton has received more than 1,000 emails and letters from readers all over the country, telling stories and sharing precious memories about their own "Sears Modern Homes," and she incorporated many of these stories into this new edition. This new edition of The Houses That Sears Built is more than a revision - it contains a tremendous amount of new information and trivia and wonderful photos that the Sears Home enthusiast will treasure and enjoy! About Sears Between 1908-1940, Sears customers ordered about 75,000 houses out of the Sears Roebuck and Company mail-order catalogs. The houses were shipped by rail to city lots and farms all over the country. Each "kit home" contained 30,000 pieces, including 750 pounds of nails and 27 gallons of paint and varnish. A 75-page instruction book showed home buyers, step by step, how to assemble those 30,000 pieces of house. Only 10% (approximately) of the Sears homes in the country have been discovered. Because of this, our communities’ best architectural treasures – our grand collection of Sears homes – are being damaged by remuddling and worse, demolished. There is tremendous interest in this topic and hopefully, The Houses That Sears Built will spur that interest even further. When you have finished reading The Houses That Sears Built you will be your community’s expert on Sears homes. You’ll learn how to identify Sears homes from the inside, outside and from courthouse documents. You’ll learn the interesting details of Sears homes’ construction. One chapter is devoted to the $1 million order of Sears homes that was shipped to Carlinville, Schoper and Wood River (Illinois). Another chapter is devoted to "The Lost Sears Homes." These are Sears homes which appeared only once in obscure Sears Modern Homes catalogs and were not included in "Houses by A Guide To Houses from Sears, Roebuck and Company," by Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I've heard of the Sears house kits, I didn't know that they also ran a mail order lumber business. They also sold shacks, as well as their premium Honor-Bilt homes. This book has many illustrations from Sears documents but only two mediocre photos. An OK read, but I'd like to see more photos.

Also shows the difficulty of research prior to the internet.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical reference with plans including advertisements. Personal narratives of the time included along with cheeky wit of author makes this a delight for anyone interested in this time period, Sears homes, catalog homes and catalog buildings. Sears sold kit barns too!

This reader wishes the tiny house movement or a construction, manufacturing or rural industry of some bent would pick up the idea and revive the concept in the contemporary. I'd be in line to purchase!

Hours and hours of browsing fun.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A one point in time you could buy a perfrabricated house from Sears and Roebuck to be shipped anywhere in the US. These homes are discussed in this work.

[Jenny Preston · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, chatty book about Sears mail-order kit homes, sold 1908-1941. Have you ever set up Ikea furniture with your spouse? Imagine doing that with a 30k piece home!

This book is particularly interesting to me as the author is from the town next to where I grew up (and therefore much of her research is as well). The pictures look incredibly familiar to my hometown, as well as to the neighborhood we lived in when early married. I know several of the streets she mentions. I honestly think our first house was either a kit home (Sears or otherwise) or a local builder ripped the plans - it matched the Crafton C plan, which was the best-selling plan the year our house was built. Of course, that was 5 moves ago so there is no way to confirm. The entire next block was identical Four Squares, also a popular kit home style.

I love reading histories of "normal life" and this was both informative and entertaining.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful. I am in the process of rehabbing my grandparents house. Our family lore says that it was a sears roebuck kit house built in 1940. The reality is that while it’s definitely a kit house, it probably isn’t a sears roebuck house.

[Steven Yenzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wonderful guide to these unique houses.

[Brandon Rush · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. I'll let slide the campy side commentary from the author, because she presented the information so well.