Who didn’t enjoy the Sear and Robuck catalog? As kids we would look through all the pages to see the planes, dolls, games, and other toys that were on their colorful pages, cameras, medical supplies, carriages, along with wonderful ideas for the household such as kitchen items, bedroom furniture, sheets and blankets, clothes for all the whole household. Did you know that you could also buy houses? Full size, several floor plans, and sizes.
In 1906 Frank W Kushel was a manager for a Sears store. He is credited with given the idea to Richard
Sears to sell kit homes through the catalog. The Aladdin Company located in Bay
City Michigan offered the first kit home through mail order. In the 1908 Sears catalog featured 44
different house styles wit prices that ranged from $360 to $2,890. (the average
wage was 22 cents to 60 cents an hour. A
pound of sugar was 4 cents and coffee 15 cents) some had two bedrooms, or 4
bedrooms, a front screened in porch, or a cobblestone foundation.
To meet the demands of sales, Sears purchased a lumber mill
in Carlos, Illinois, a second one in Port Newark, New Jersey. Soon the Northwood Sash and door company in
Norwood Ohio, giving Sears, the ability to mass produce the material in the
kits, while reducing the manufacturing cost. By 1910 these kit homes included
gas and electric fixtures.
In 1912 Sears was offering financing plans, early loan were
5 to 15 years at a rate of 6 to 7% interest.
How did you receive the kit house? The entire home would arrive by
railroad. Each 10,000 to 30,000 piece
was numbered, 750 pounds of nails, carved staircases, varnish, pedestal sinks,
kitchen sinks, plumbing, electrical wiring, lights, and a 75-page instruction
book. Window trim, clapboard, fascia,
soffit, maple tongue and grove floorboards all like a giant puzzle, just
waiting to be put together. You could
also pay a work crew along with the house, if your family and friends were not
able to help you do a house raising. Sears was one of the first builders to
utilize the balloon style framing, which only required one carpenter on site,
as well as using drywalls for walls, asphalt shingles for the roof and central
heating.
By 1923 Sears had expanded its line one more to reflect the growing
demands for rural customers for these kit houses. Now Sears even offered the
modern house, Farm buildings and Barns! They estimated that a precut kit home,
barn or building would take 352 hours to assemble, verses the 583 hours to
build from scratch. That was a 40%
reduction in work time.
In the years that these houses were presented by Sears in
their catalog (1908 – 1940) the houses had a variety of floor plans, architects
had designed 447 different styles of houses.
Each one different and unique, as the design could be modified is
several ways, reversed the floor plans, oak floors, or built with brick instead
of wood siding, or cypress siding or cedar shingles instead of asphalt.
Can you imagine the excitement when the kit house would arrive
at the train station? When all the
family and friends would show up on your property to watch or help put the
house together, the laughter, meal shared, kids playing while the adults work
together to assemble the house. Later once the house was done, the awe as folks
would walk through the house in wonderment and amazement that came from the kit
house purchased through the Sears and Robuck catalog. So did these houses endure over the
years. Why yes, they do and we have some
in Springville to prove that and they are still lived in today!
