Sears Homes in Detroit?

[p69rrh51]

A possible kit house by Aladdin Homes of Bay City, MI.

http://clarke.cmich.edu/resource_tab...ity_index.html

706 University Place City of Grosse Pointe, MI.

[Zacha341]

I think Highland Park has a few... A friend has one in southwest Detroit.

[Gistok]

706 University Place City of Grosse Pointe, MI.

p69rrh51... that Grosse Pointe home has 1 thing you rarely see... and another thing you almost never see...

Basement windows on the front of a house... and no landscaping fronting a GP home!

[DetroitPlanner]

Lustron made these type of homes too. They were all steel construction. Only a handful were found in Metro Detroit. Siding was similar to what is seen at the White Castle! http://www.lustronconnection.org/htm...etroit_MI.html

[old guy]

Lustron made these type of homes too. They were all steel construction. Only a handful were found in Metro Detroit. Siding was similar to what is seen at the White Castle! http://www.lustronconnection.org/htm...etroit_MI.html

Thanks. I used to drive by one of those Lustron homes frequently and always wondered what the interior looked like.

[p69rrh51]

p69rrh51... that Grosse Pointe home has 1 thing you rarely see... and another thing you almost never see...

Basement windows on the front of a house... and no landscaping fronting a GP home!

You should have seen the home a year ago! The house was empty from 09 to the end of last summer the current owners spent most of their time getting the structure back in shape. I have a feeling the landscaping will be this year's project.

[EastsideAl]

Lustron made these type of homes too. They were all steel construction. Only a handful were found in Metro Detroit. Siding was similar to what is seen at the White Castle! http://www.lustronconnection.org/htm...etroit_MI.html

That house is on Ashland backing onto Fox Creek. I've had my eye on it every time I went by there just because it is so unusual, and have been noticing that the upkeep seems to have improved quite a bit in the last year or two. Really great to see the interior photos showing that someone has done something really nice with it. That strip there has so much potential, and, as someone who has a family history there, its been sad to see it fall into such decay and disrepair.

I once ran into a whole multi-colored neighborhood of those enameled Lustron homes in Pennsylvania. It was a very strange sight, to be sure.

[Jimaz]

That house is on Ashland backing onto Fox Creek....

Thanks. I found it in Google Maps.

The interior looks as if it would be noisy with all those sound-reflecting surfaces. Maybe they could use some kind of active noise cancellation device to dampen the din.

[Gistok]

I want to thank everyone for this very informative thread!! Awsome stuff these modular homes! Very interesting about Sears and other homes. And reading about Cairo IL... wow...

I've been on this forum for 15 years. And I thought I had seen or read about it all... But thanks for proving me wrong!

[DetroitTeacher]

My great uncle lived in one for years...until the 90s, I believe [[and it's still standing and in great shape) in Belleville. I always loved that house. For the life of me, I can't remember the name of the street but it's a 2 lane off of Main Street. I'll remember it about 3 am. It's on lake property but it's near the road.

[Jimaz]

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company

[grumpyoldlady]

When we lived near Goodells in the Thumb, the home was a Sears kit home, or so the previous owner told us. It was built around 1912.

[Kimistree]

Yes. A very reliable source tells me that 4141 Yorkshire in EEV is a Sears home. It stands to reason, since it doesn't resemble any of the other houses at all [[which are mostly 1920s - 1940s Tudors, brick/stone bugalows, and Colonials). It's the white house.

https://maps.google.com/maps?safe=of...ed=0CDQQ8gEwAA

It, along with the rest of its block, is lovingly maintained. It's just a few blocks from my house.

I am the owner of 4141 Yorkshire and it is indeed a Sears kit house. It was built in 1925 and we are the 3rd owners. Our house has wonderful interior wood work and is one a a few Crescents that's exterior was not modified in some way. If I can find them I will post a picture of the interior door, so you can get an idea of how well built these homes were. Not your everyday prefab house!

[Hamtragedy]

Here's mine.

http://www.antiquehome.org/House-Pla...ng/Senator.htm

This picture looks like numerous blocks on the east side.

[Richard]

Here's mine.

http://www.antiquehome.org/House-Pla...ng/Senator.htm

This picture looks like numerous blocks on the east side.

Nice, interesting how you can take a four square and add some different details and make no two the same.

Do any still have the porch railing running all the way to the base like in the picture ?

[Hamtragedy]

No. The clapboard wraps around the front porch, with the arched cut-out for drainage. There's 4" clapboard around the bottom of the entire house, which changes to 2" above the band for the upper portion. I'm trying to figure out how to upload some interior images. Mine is the mahogany package, so it probably cost $1200.

[Richard]

Most of the sears homes in Fla that I have seen are different like that with the use of different hardwoods, oak floors and such are rare with most of the floors and trim being in heart pine ,you do not cry as much when you find it painted.

[p69rrh51]

Thx Kimistree for the lead on your lovely home. if you have a Facebook page you can see the home in my Sears Album.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...e=1&uploaded=2

[kithomegirl]

A few corrections to the comments made about kit homes.

1. These homes were not "pre-fabricated" homes. Unlike a modern modular home, these homes were not pre-fabricated in the factory. The owner or builder had to build everything on site.

2. Almost all of the kit homes came with the lumber "pre-cut" or "mill cut". The lumber was cut to the appropriate length to allow it to be assembled based on the blueprints that were provided with each home. This was a big selling point in the days before power tools.

3. The main reason that Sears and Wardway - Montgomery Ward's home division - got out of the kit home business was the collapse of the housing market due to the Great Depression. Both companies had gotten involved in the mortgage financing side of the home business and when homeowners started defaulting on these mortgages, the companies had to write down massive losses on these loans. Shades of the mortgage meltdown of the last several few years! Aladdin, which was based in Bay City, never got into the mortgage business and was able to continue in operation until the 1980s. But even for Aladdin, sales precipitously declined in the 1930s and never returned to the sales levels of the 1920s.

Kit homes by Aladdin, Lewis, Sears, Sterling and Wardway are all over southeast Michigan. Primarily delivered by rail, you will almost always find them within a couple miles of a rail line. There were a lot more railroads back in the 1920s which accounts for kit homes in locations where railroads don't exist today. Detroit had sales offices for Aladdin and Sears and Sears also had a sales office in Ann Arbor. If you want to see a lot of kit homes in a small area, go to Clawson. The museum has a list of over 20 kit homes in the city.

http://www.clawsonhistoricalsociety....kit_homes.html

[Stinger4me]

These are very nice houses, with some individuality and character.

[lara]

If you want to learn more about Sears houses, the BIBLE is Houses by Mail by Stevenson and Jandl. Your local library should have a copy.

Also, if you want to learn more about Cairo, there is a great documentary that came out recently: http://www.betweentworivers.net/about.htm

Some of the houses linked/posted here are not Sears houses. The Aladdin in Grosse Pointe that p69 posted is a possibility. Need to see more of the other side.

Oldguy--the Magnolia is a rare Sears house. Georgian Revival houses are very common and most people misidentify that style of house as Magnolias. If you found one in Michigan, that would be a big deal to researchers!

Astonishingly, no one has indexed the locations of the Sears houses in the US. I started an index here:
https://plus.google.com/communities/...76485960169168

I run a website that ostensibly is about Sears houses in Chicago area, but I write about catalog houses all over the country. Anywhere there is an interesting story to tell!
sears-homes.com

Hope this information helps someone.

Lara

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

Sears home for sale in Jefferson Chalmers. Interior demo already started. This one is odd in that it has a 60 foot wide lot; a three car garage and a circular drive that wraps around the back of the house. Plus two neighbors that are the same model; you can see one of those to the left.

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-69382?view=qv

[Richard]

I would be wary of the stucco aspect,if they just went over the top of the clap board siding with no vapor barrier it would be rotting on the interior.

Quickest way to kill a wood house is by not allowing it to breathe.

[Carolyn.F]

More info on kit houses from a local enthusiast http://kithousehunters.blogspot.com