If you’re a part of a younger generation, you know Sears as the boring store in the mall to which your parents dragged you to shop for appliances, or even as the store where Grandma bought all your wacky Christmas outfits (sorry Grandma!). However, if you’re from an older generation, then your memories of the fading box store are actually much fonder–especially if you happened to grow up in a Sears home.
You may be able to order anything that your heart desires for a steal on the internet these days, but we bet that you can’t find a mail-order, build-it-yourself home that can last decades, and for less than $3,000. Back in the early 1900s, however, the Sears catalog offered just that.
When Sears launched its first catalog back in 1888, it sold watches and jewelry. However, as the catalog grew more popular, the retailer decided to expand its offerings…to include houses. Today, such an idea would be a whimsical reach–one expressed by a person of mid- to lower-class (Wouldn’t it be cool if we could build a whole house for less than $3,000?! And to have the parts of that home mailed to us, with directions, for no additional charge?!); however, back in the early 1900s, the idea was actually possible. And not only was it possible–it was profitable.
The Sears Modern Homes catalog debuted in 1908, and it offered all the materials and blueprints needed to build a house. The pieces, which arrived in the mail, fit together sort of like Legos, so buyers could build the houses themselves or hire contractors to do the hard work for them.
“You would order everything from your light fixtures, to your lamp, [the wall covering], kitchen cabinets, the whole thing, whether you get a garage or not. And then it just shipped to you,” preservationist Eric Dobson told NPR’s Allison Keyes in 2014.
Though Sears was not the first company to offer mail-order “kit homes,” by the time the catalog was discontinued in 1940, Sears is estimated to have sold between 70,000 and 75,000 houses.
Sears’ homes catalog, along with its other products, helped the company earn the title of America’s largest retailer. Sadly, that reign has come to an end. Today, Sears’ parent company has filed for bankruptcy, and as a result, the remaining open stores are closing its doors.
Preservationists estimate that nearly 70 percent of all Sears homes built are still standing today, a testament to the quality of both the materials and the blueprints (and don’t forget the tools – courtesy of Sears as well!). Yet, they only cost between a few hundred and a few thousand to order and build.
The Martha Washington model, for instance, was a higher priced model, selling for between $2,688 and $3,727, the modern equivalent of $35,713 to $49,518. You can’t buy a modular home today for that price–at least, not one in habitable condition. These homes were so well designed and so well built that, in 2016, one sold for more than $1 million.
There are certain parts of the country in which Sears homes were more popular, one of which is Michigan. One man interviewed by NPR – Eric Romain – hails from Royal Oak, Michigan, where he says he can’t go a block without seeing at least six mail-order homes, each of which is identical to his.
Andrew and Wendy Mutch, operators of Kit Househunters Blog–a blog that shares the research done surrounding kit homes as well as homes already identified as mail-order homes–purchased a Sears home in 2003 in Novi, Mich. The model was drafted in 1908, but their particular home was built in 1926. When they purchased the home, they received a binder of information regarding Sears homes.
Mutch claims that his interest in kit homes began when the son of the original owner reached out to him with photos of the home under construction.
“I realized not only was this a house, but there’s this whole story behind the house,” Mutch says.
“I associated Sears with this big, iconic brand that everybody knew. It wasn’t some obscure store. Every town had a Sears store,” Mutch says. “It had been there forever.”
Mutch’s interest in kit homes, as well as other kit home preservationists’ interest, stems from much more than the fact that Sears was a part of the shopping mall landscape for earlier generations. Rather, it stems from the fact that Sears accomplished something that our generation–with all our advancements and knowledge and streamlined processes — cannot accomplish today, and that is to home and advance the middle class. Because of Sears’ mail-order homes, the middle class grew and flourished. That, Romain says, it what makes Sears’ story most notable.
“Being middle class and being able to go buy and own a home that you can build with your own hands” makes the houses special, he says.
Today, it’s remarkable when a middle-class family can even buy a home, much less build one, according to CheatSheet.
According to Rebecca Hunter, author of Putting Sears Homes on the Map and who grew up shopping at Sears stores, “[Sears is] where you went when you didn’t have any money to shop at the other stores.”
She is one of many who is saddened by the fact that kit homes – and smaller homes in general – are being torn down and replaced by McMansions.
“Construction has changed and people’s desires have changed, and not many people want an 800-square-foot little six-room cottage anymore,” she says.
But Hunter hopes to continue finding and researching Sears houses and other kit homes.
“The whole kit home phenomenon is pretty unique to architecture in the United States of America. So therefore I feel very strongly that we must save at least a percentage of these houses,” she says.
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