Sears Modern Homes

Editor's note: Rosemary Thornton is one of the country's leading experts on Sears catalog homes. She's also the author of a new book, "The Houses That Sears Built: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sears Catalogue Homes," published in 2002 by Gentle Beam Publications.

Text and photos by Rosemary Thornton

How do you find Sears houses? It's not easy. Thus far, I've found and positively identified more than 120 Sears homes in Southwest Illinois, largely by cruising early-1900s neighborhoods and studying individual houses. Here are some of the practical tips I've found useful in searching for Sears homes in my corner of the country.

1) Do your homework

Start your search with a reference work, such as "Houses by Mail: A Guide to Houses from Sears, Roebuck and Company," or Dover Publishing's reprint of the 1926 Sears Modern Homes catalogue. Both of these are available at on-line bookstores. After studying these books and other Sears Modern Homes catalogs for about two years, I've memorized many of the different designs. That makes the search process easier (for me, anyway!). Study the photos and drawings in Houses by Mail. What makes Sears homes different? Look closely at the different houses and get a "feel" for some of their more unique homes, like The Savoy or The Sherburne.

2) Do your field work

Identifying Sears houses is something you learn by doing. Drive around age-appropriate neighborhoods. Once you spot your first "Sunbeam" or "Arlington," you'll never miss another one.

Study front porches and roof lines. Original front porches can have several easy-to-spot clues. Look at the stick-work on the front porch columns and the interesting millwork on the 3-part front porch columns. Note the small block of wood, centered on the front porch roof's trim. The roof line of the Sunbeam and Windsor extends much further on the front of the house than the back. This is not a feature unique to Sears homes, but making a note of where the roof-line falls will help you compare catalog photos to existing houses.

Check out the chimney. Floor plans change, but chimneys stay put. If the chimney in your suspected Sears house is in the wrong place, it's probably not a Sears house. But keep in mind that floor plans were reversible.

Subtle nuances can be the distinguishing features of a Sears home. The San Jose front door (see picture below) is also a clue, as this was a Sears product. However, keep in mind that Sears also sold millions of dollars worth of building materials. A San Jose front door is no more proof that a house is a Sears Home than a Lowe's steel entry door is proof of a Lowe's home. But it's another visual clue that tells you to slow down and look closer.

In Southwestern Illinois, where limestone was the primary building material for house foundations, I keep my eyes opened for cinder block foundations. Sears kit houses were often built by homeowners. A natural stone, like limestone, required a skilled stone mason. Cinder block was much simpler to work with.

Sears homes had five-piece eave brackets. Unfortunately, these are often covered up by contemporary siding materials. And, a few Montgomery Wards homes had this same eave bracket. But again, it's a visual clue that suggests you might have a mail order home.

3) Check your "find" against the catalog

Once you have a Sears home "suspect," search through Houses by Mail and try to find a house design and floor plan that matches your home. But remember also, Sears offered customization of their basic designs. Alterations in floor plans and even roof lines were not uncommon.

Sears opened Modern Homes sales centers in several cities, including two in Missouri - one in St. Louis and one in Kansas City. At these sales centers, sales agents helped home buyers design just the home they wanted. Minor and major changes - from adding a few more windows to changing from a hip roof to a gabled roof - were suggested and encouraged. This, coupled with the passage of a few decades, makes identification challenging, to say the least.

The simpler the house, the harder it is to positively identify it. My community probably has a couple dozen "Starlights" but because they are so modest and unpretentious, singling them out as Sears homes is nearly impossible.

4) Go to court

You might try searching old grantor records at the county courthouse, because Sears held mortgages on so many of their houses.

In Illinois, I've had success looking under each of these names: Walker O. Lewis (up to 1929/30), Nicholas Wieland, sometimes misspelled as Weiland (1929 - on), or E. Harrison Powell or John Higgins. All of these men signed mortgage documents for Sears and you'll find their names listed under "Grantor's Indexes." I also found one mortgage listed under "Sears Roebuck." (Thanks to Dale Patrick Wolicki, Architectural Historian, Bay County [Michigan Historical Society] for the names of Walker O. Lewis, Nicholas Wieland and E. Harrison Powell. Lewis and Wieland were the names that I found most frequently in Southwestern Illinois -- RT.)

Finding the listings is only half the battle. Most of the warranty deeds and mortgage documents I examined contained no addresses, only legal descriptions without even the city's name mentioned. Converting sometimes vague 70+ year old legal descriptions into tangible addresses is challenging. In Illinois, we went to the Maps and Plan Office in the county courthouse and were able to get the house addresses. But each search took about 10 minutes and the clerk was only willing to do three per visit.

The one Sears house I did find in the grantor record was in Granite City, about 20 minutes from my home in Alton, Illinois. I could hardly wait to see what the house looked like! What style would it be? Had I finally located my "Magnolia"? An "Ivanhoe?" (These were two of Sears fanciest homes.) When I arrived at the house address given in the mortgage document, I was crestfallen. It was a 600-square foot box with 8 little windows and a tiny front porch. Never in a million years would I have guessed that non-descript frame house to be a Sears home.

5) Look inside

Interior hardware can also provide some clues, but this is not conclusive, either. Ornamental, scalloped, face mount hinges on doors and cabinets often catch my eye.

You may also find stamped lumber inside a Sears home. Lumber was stamped with a letter and a number, which was then referenced in the 75-80 page instruction book. The letters and numbers helped homeowners figure out how to assemble the lumber. The problem is, the stamp is located on the end of the lumber, which is hard to find on a house that is still standing.

The absence of stamped lumber is not proof that you do not have a Sears home. In the early years (prior to 1912-13), Sears homes were sold and shipped sans framing members. The bill of materials list would advise customers, in detail, how many 2 x4s, 2x6s, 2x8s, etc., they'd need to purchase at their local lumber yard for their Sears Modern Home.

I've also learned that Sears competitors (Aladdin, Gordon Van Tine, etc) bundled same-size framing members and put one tag on the whole bundle (such as "this bundle contains floor joists for first floor"). I suspect Sears did some of this as well. And there were times that demand outpaced supply and Sears turned to local lumber yards to produce needed lumber.

6) Think outside the box

Don't put too much stock in front porches. You may find a perfect match for a Sears house, but then discover that the front porch doesn't match the catalog photo. This is common. Perusing old Sears homes catalogs, I've found the front porches on the same models changed frequently through the years. And front porches were often the first thing to get "customized" when the house was designed, built or remodeled. A drive through Carlinville, Illinois, which has the largest collection of Sears Homes in the country, proves this point conclusively. These homes sport a wide variety of front porches. (Carlinville has 152 Sears homes in a 12-block area of the "Standard Addition.")

To find Sears homes, you'll also need to learn to "think out of the box." Look at these photos of Sears homes from my corner of Illinois (below). See how contemporary siding materials have altered the homes' appearances? The Sears houses you find on your neighborhood streets are not going to match the old catalogue photos.

The Roanoke originally had distinctive wooden awnings over the front windows, but in most cases, those old awnings were taken down many decades ago. Deep eaves became shallower as siding materials and exterior insulation were added. Wooden front porches got torn down and rebuilt. You've got to learn how to visualize a 1920s house dressed up in 1970s-1990s garments.

7) Tap local resources

To do a proper and thorough survey of the Sears homes in your community, you're going to need some help. Contact the local historical society and tell them what you're doing. These folks are usually incredibly supportive and have wonderful resources to aid you in your search. In working with these groups, you might be able to get some press coverage (in small towns) and then the phone calls may start to come from senior citizens, telling you where to find one or two, or even a cluster of, Sears homes.

About one-quarter of my Sears homes discoveries have come from these personal reminiscences. Memories are usually accurate, but not always. When someone says, "Yeah, we live in a Sears home," I ask, "How do you know?" If they reply, "Well, it looks like a Sears home, doesn't it?" I smile and keep going.

If they reply, "My dad remembers when his Mom ordered it out of the catalog," or "My aunt remembers riding down to the train depot with Granddad to unload the boxcars," I listen a lot closer.

Sears homes were also delivered by truck. As word spread of my search for Sears homes, I met a woman who worked at one of Sears lumber mills in Urbandale, in Southern Illinois. It was her job to help load the lumber and materials on a truck and drive the delivery truck to the site.

8) Keep records

Unfortunately, many of the people who knew of the Sears homes in the community have passed on. So as you start finding Sears homes, keep good records and notes and preserve the information in an easily accessible format. Give one copy of your findings to the local historical society and another to the history room of your local library. As time passes, identification of these old homes will become more and more challenging.

The search for Sears homes is exciting. For the last two years, I've been researching in Southwestern Illinois and every house I find is a thrill and a fresh opportunity to learn something new.

And every now and then, you'll find, like I did, the perfect house. My "perfect house" was the 75-year old Starlight in Alton. It was a one-owner home and looked much like it did when built in the 1920s. Hardware, light fixtures, room layout -- nothing had changed. Standing in the living room of that house, holding a 1922 Sears Modern Homes catalog in my hands, I saw that the room view before my eyes matched the catalog's interior photos of The Starlight. It was a wonderful thing. For a moment, I had stepped right into the pages of my 1922 Sears catalog.

Warning, bet you can't ID just one!

Once you start looking at Sears homes, it's hard to stop. The other day, I was driving along, snatching glances at houses that lined the roadway when my 14-year old daughter asked, "Mom, do you think there will ever be a time when you will stop looking for Sears Homes?"

"What do you think?" I replied.

"Probably not," she said, as she reached down to the floorboard of the car and picked up my tattered copy of Houses by Mail and started thumbing through it.

Other parts of this story: Part 1: Building by the book | Part 2: Post-WWI building boom | A note on the number of designs | List of references for these stories

To more OHW stories on Sears homes

Text and photos are copyright 2002 by Rosemary Thornton and may not be reproduced or distributed without her express written consent.