Mammoth bones were used as supports. Individuals could even design their own homes and submit the blueprints to Sears, which would then ship off the appropriate precut and fitted materials, putting the home owner in full creative control. Kit houses, also known as mill-cut houses, pre-cut houses, ready-cut houses, mail order homes, or catalog homes, were a type of housing that was popular in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere in the first half of the 20th century. Without the profitable mortgage program Montgomery-Ward decided to discontinue its offerings of pre-cut houses and building materials entirely. What is a Sears home? [4] Prospective customers could arrange to inspect kit houses in their vicinity or visit a company's factory to tour model homes. The arts and crafts home, also referred to as the Craftsman home, is one of the most adored design styles of modern times. Save Pin It See More Images (Image credit: Wikimedia Commons) Once, I bought a bag of dirt on the internet. The resulting houses were indistinguishable in quality and appearance from those built by traditional methods, if not better, yet were often significantly cheaper to build because of the savings on carpenters' and contractors' wages; and the cost of high-quality lumber bought from a large kit house company often was lower than at the local lumber yard. Sears wanted Modern Homes to be cost-effective for buyers, which often meant purchasing materials locally and not from the few and geographically distant Sears lumber mills. Sears Archives, accessed 5 July 2011, Sears, Roebuck and Company, Antique Home Style, accessed 2 July 2011, Pollard-Terry, Gayle. One of the longest lived and most successful kit home companies was the Aladdin Company, based in Bay City, Michigan. In the United States, several companies including Sears Catalog Homes began offering mail-order kit homes between 1902 and 1910. Liberty Ready-Cut Homes, Lewis Manufacturing Co., Bay City, Mich., c. 1940The Lewis Manufacturing Co. was one of three kit house manufacturers in Bay City, Mich., and was the first producer of Aladdin Homes. This can be established through basic visual clues, by reading up about the local area, and by talking to your neighbours and other members of the local community. Eventually, manufacturers began to market these kit houses as “vacation cottages” and “bungalows” to expand their use and applications. Kit houses have a history of early on being sold in catalogues for DIY homeowners. The portable buildings were marketed for export and promoted as “suitable for all climates—the Colonies, South Africa, and India.”. Albee Pre-cut Homes, Albee Homes, Middleburgh Heights, Ohio, 1960This catalog features various “architect designed” ranch-style kit houses, with one option inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright. Aladdin Catalog Kit Houses in the Hudson Valley of New York - how to identify a Aladdin Catalog Home - Houses by Mail from Aladdin & Roebuck Co. The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) records a brief overview of the date of construction and significant features of every listed building in England. Architect Magazine: Architectural Design | Architecture Online:  The premier site for architecture industry news & building resources for architects and architecture industry professionals. La Liga Nike. The Forest Products Laboratory , a division of the U.S. Forest Service , put extensive research into prefabricated homes in the 1930s, including building one for the 1935 Madison Home Show. "Post-Katrina cottages get a lukewarm welcome,", "The Katrina Cottage Plans are no longer available at Lowe's," Lowes.com, accessed 6 July 2011, http://www.mdacadia.ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/House-Tour.pdf, Aladdin Homes company archives at Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University, House Plans from Books and Kits - 1900 to 1960, "Steadily Enlarging Demand for Ready-Cut Houses,", Historic Catalogs online for many kit house companies, Historic Catalogs online for Sears Modern Homes, Historic Catalogs online for Harris Brothers Company, Historic Catalogs online for Lewis/Liberty Manufacturing Company, Historic Catalogs online for Montgomery Ward's, Historic Catalogs online for Sterling Homes, Historic Catalog of Fenner Factory-Cut Homes, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kit_house&oldid=994777134, Articles needing additional references from October 2013, All articles needing additional references, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Other smaller providers of mail-order kits included The. 165 to be about $2640, and so on. [45] However, although initially "hailed as the new Sears & Roebuck house,"[46] the program faced strong opposition from local governments in the Gulf Coast region who feared the cottages would lower property values, and by mid-2011, Lowe's had discontinued its product line. In addition, with some companies, homebuyers could choose the quality of materials. This catalog features “vacation cottages” with a patented “bolt together” construction system. Though early versions were primarily simple wooden structures, by the early 20th century, Sears, Roebuck & Co. and other manufacturers also provided all heating, electrical, and plumbing components. Sears kit homes were shipped via boxcar and came with a 75-page instruction book. Many decades later, those same markings can help identify a home as a Sears kit home. Each kit contained 10,000 - 30,000 pieces and the framing members were marked to facilitate construction. One of the longest lived and most successful kit home companies was the Aladdin Company, based in Bay City, Michigan. [47][48], The Municipal District of Acadia, Alberta, has published a map of a self-guided driving tour of local catalogue houses.[49]. Accessed 30 November 2017. Their "menu" approach to ordering allowed us to customize the home to fit our style. Hodgson Portable Houses, E.F. Hodgson Co., Boston, 1916Operating from 1892 until 1944, E. F. Hodgson Co. was an prolific retailer of vacation cottages in the Northeastern U.S. There were actually six large companies that made kit houses, but none had the marketing clout of Sears and its famous catalog. Ice age humans lived in caves some of the time but they also made tents from mammoth skins. Built from a Kit: A Brief History of Sears Catalog Homes. Depending on the size and style of the plan, the materials needed to construct a typical house, including perhaps 10,000–30,000 pieces of lumber and other building material,[3] would fill one or two railroad boxcars,[5][6] which would be loaded at the company's mill and sent to the customer's home town, where they would be parked on a siding or in a freight yard for unloading. We want to say thanks by offering content just for you. Get a rough estimate of how old your house is. Get pricing info here. This bungalow kit home from Heb Homes can be constructed using either SIPs or CLT to a weather tight stage for the homeowner to finish or as a complete turnkey package. Get pricing info here. More than 100 years of stories, product and brand histories, photographs, catalog images and … The journal of the American Institute of Architects, Robert Nichols: Let's Increase Opportunities for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Architects and Designers, Deryl McKissack: A Moment for Optimism and Realism for Diversity in Architecture, Corey Kingston: I Installed the Philip Johnson Sign at MoMA, Memorable Memorial and Monument Trends of the 20th Century, Get Organized: Looking Back at Office Storage of the Past, Nazi Architecture Bros: The Young Men in Albert Speer’s Office, Core Materials: Better Concrete, Better Steel. Many models had two or three floor plans, while the exterior could be clapboards, shingles, stucco, or framed for brick. "How Log Cabin Kits Work," HowStuffWorks.com, 10 March 2009. [10], Kit houses were promoted through catalogs available at lumber yards and hardware stores, through the mail-order catalogs published by large retailers like Sears and Wards, and through advertisements in popular magazines and newspapers in those cities where kit home manufacturers had local sales offices. Lumber and hardware were purchased in bulk. House kits contained all of the house's parts, so the owners built the homes themselves or … The very first kit home ever built was manufactured by a carpenter in England in 1830 and erected in Australia by his emigrating son. In addition to the national players like Aladdin and Sears, there were many small companies with regional markets. Unlike modular homes, which are built in sections at a factory, in a kit house every separate piece of lumber was shipped already numbered and cut to fit its particular place in the house, thus eliminating the need for measuring and cutting, and likewise the waste of time (especially in the days before power tools) and of materials. Sears didn’t make all pre-cut houses. KIT Custom Homebuilders has been in the business of building superior quality homes since 1945. Aladdin, Sears, Pacific, Bennett, Harris, Sterling, Liberty, Fenner, Gordon Van-tine, Wardway. Historic house plans, Floor plans, vintage Radford, Aladdin, Lewis (Liberty), Sterling kit houses - Sears, Wardway, Gordon-Van Tine are included. Among the catalog giant’s astounding range of offerings were house kits, which the company began marking in 1908. This is the complete catalog from 1925. 159, priced at $652: "By allowing a fair price for labor, cement, brick, and plaster, which we do not furnish, this house can be built for about $1171.00, including all material and labor." ‘Presto Up’ Patented Bolt-Together Cottages, Harris Brothers Co., Chicago, 1923After an early start as the demolition contractor for the 1893 Chicago World Fair, Harris Brothers Co. became a major building material supplier with a line of kit residences in the early 20th century. [3][7] The price of land or a city lot on which to build would be another expense. The two-tone chest band has been revived several times, most notably in the 2019-20. Sears catalog houses were known as kit houses because their 30,000 pre-cut parts arrived by boxcar and totaled about 25 tons of material. Antique Home offers information on old house architectural style. All designs were standardized to maximize efficiency and reduce waste in materials and labor. The concept of the kit house likely originated in the U.K., but after these mail-order residences were introduced to the U.S. market in the late 19th century, they became synonymous with the American dream. Sears was ... a very able follower of popular home designs but with the added advantage of modifying houses and hardware according to buyer tastes. The history of the original kit homes. In the mid-19th century, Richard Sears began selling his products to the public through his very first catalog. [9], Over 100,000 kit homes were built in the United States between 1908 and 1940. So are the Cello House, the Viola House and the Second Fiddle House at the Music Mountain in Falls Village, Canaan. Kit house owners often bond over a shared history of their homes. [4] For most homeowners, the complete cost of building a kit house was about double the catalog price, allowing for the construction of a foundation and labor costs. For example, in 1928 Walt Disney and his brother Roy built two kit houses made by Pacific Ready Cut Homes on lots they owned in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. Cove.Tool Performance Analysis Platform... 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Floor joists and bridging, sub-flooring, finished flooring, studs, rafters, sheathing, clapboards, shingles, stucco, plaster or drywall, columns, railings, doors and windows, hardware, nails, and paint for two exterior coats were included in the order. Some kit house companies continued after World War II, but most homebuyers flocked to the new, inexpensive tract house subdivisions springing up across the country. "12,000 Easy Pieces,", "Aladdin Readi-Cut Houses," The Arts and Crafts Society, accessed 28 June 2011, "Aladdin Kit Homes," Antique Home Style, accessed 2 July 2011, Aladdin Company Archives, Clarke Historical Library, accessed 2 July 2011, "Bennett Homes," The Arts and Crafts Society, accessed 28 June 2011, "Bennett Homes: Better-Built & Ready-Cut," Antique Home Style, accessed 2 July 2011, Hunter, Rebecca. This post is part of a monthly series that explores the historical applications of building materials and systems through resources from the Building Technology Heritage Library (BTHL), an online collection of AEC catalogs, brochures, trade publications, and more. [42] And beginning in 2006, for a few years Lowe's supplied plans and materials (not pre-cut) for small stick-built homes called Katrina Cottages, with walls designed to withstand 140 mile-per-hour winds, intended to provide temporary housing for Gulf Coast residents who had lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina. HA! • Aladdin Homes company archives at Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University includes complete sales catalogs from 1908 to 1954 Duse, Eleanor. Sears has opened the doors to its vast archival collection and invited the public to peek inside. "Internet Archive Search: creator:"Ray H. Bennett Lumber Co., Inc. "Ready Built Homes," The Arts and Crafts Society, accessed 28 June 2011, "Gordon-Van Tine," Antique Home Style, accessed 2 July 2011, "Harris Brothers Bungalows," The Arts and Crafts Society, accessed 28 June 2011, "Harris Brothers Co.," Antique Home Style, accessed 2 July 2011, "Hewitt-Lea-Funck Co.," Antique Home Style, accessed 30 June 2011, "Kit Homes by Lewis Manufacturing," Antique Home, accessed 28 June 2011, "Lewis Manufacturing," Antique Home Style, accessed 2 July 2011, "Pacific Ready Cut Homes: 1925," The Arts and Crafts Society, accessed 20 April 2016, "Pacific Ready Cut Homes," Antique Home Style, accessed 2 July 2011, "Sears Roebuck Houses," The Arts and Crafts Society, accessed 28 June 2011, "Sterling System Homes," The Arts and Crafts Society, accessed 28 June 2011, "Sterling System Homes," Antique Home Style, accessed 2 July 2011, "Wardway Homes," The Arts and Crafts Society, accessed 28 June 2011, "Montgomery Ward - Wardway Homes," Antique Home Style, accessed 2 July 2011. We are a locally owned business with a family feel. There remain some gaps in the record and no information has so far come to light covering the first 40-odd years of the club's existence. “The construction of these building is so simple that two or three men without mechanical knowledge, or experience in building, can set up one of them IN LESS THAN THREE HOURS,” the catalog proclaims. Preserving the History of American Kit Homes. A BRIEF HISTORY OF HOUSES. Home > Plans Aladdin Kit Homes Manufactured by the Aladdin Company. Sectional Portable Houses, D.N. Gordon-Van Tine offered discounts for customers who chose lesser-quality siding, roofing, doors, windows, and trim. Your General Panel Home, General Panel Corp. of California, Burbank, Calif., c. 1950This catalog features a single model designed with “step saving efficiency” that came “complete, ready for you to move.” In addition to the residential design, the publication offers detailed illustrations of the panel construction and installation methods. Likewise, Sears designers estimated the total building cost of their $1248 model No. They wore boots, trousers, and anoraks made from animal skins. No matter how far back the […] The first modular homes were called “kit homes.” The very first home kits were sold through the Alladin Company’s catalog. "Lindal Cedar Homes founder dies," seattletimes.com, 16 September 2011. Save Comments. Zip Kit Homes was exactly that. Stick-built, balloon-framed kit houses were built as permanent, not temporary structures, as the manager of the Sears, Roebuck lumber department explained to a United States Senate committee in 1919:[2]. The heyday of kit homes was from 1910 to 1930. What is a Sears home? Aladdin Kit Homes: Aladdin Kit Home company (originally the North American Construction Co., Ltd.) operated between 1906 and 1981 in the U.S. Dale Wolicki lists Saturday Evening Post, National Geographic, and Good Housekeeping as examples of nationwide magazines where Gordon-VanTine advertised. Thus, kit home manufacturers claimed to save the customer as much as 30 to 40 percent over traditional building methods. Houses of Celebrities Today. Identifying a kit house can sometimes be challenging. Known as the "floodlights kit," this did service in several home games against European opposition under the new Fir Park floodlights. The company apparently did reasonably well for about ten … Another company, Aladdin, sold enough homes to the Bristol Brass. Many people have lived in kit houses for years without realizing the historical and architectural significance of their humble abodes. Accessed 5 July 2011. In many Washington, DC, neighborhoods and in the city’s older suburbs, we can find an abundance of those historic kit houses. Today, the BTHL houses a comprehensive catalog of architectural house plan publications dating back to the 1800s. published Jan 18, 2017. bungalowinabox.com. bungalowinabox.com Our management team has over 200 years of combined industry experience and knowledge. The BTHL is a project of the Association for Preservation Technology, an international building preservation organization. Dozens of companies, large and small, jumped on the bandwagon. We've had modest success finding details about other kit home companies selling in the United States and Canada and have made a few additions (found below) to a list complied by Rebecca Hunter. (More often than not, the owners have no idea that some 90 or 100 years ago, their house arrived neatly packaged on a railroad car, in thousands of numbered pieces.) An early version of a prefab home was sent from England in the 1600s, but real prefabrication did not take off until the arrival of "house kits." He led the architectural division of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency for more than 30 years and now champions the development of the Association for Preservation Technology's Building Technology Heritage Library, an online archive of pre-1964 AEC documents. Standard size boxcars were 40 feet long and about ten feet wide until railroads began using longer ones in the 1960s. home > House Plans. The date when it was built … Throughout 1934 and 1935 customers paid-off their home mortgages with Sears and Montgomery. Sears Roebuck continued to sell pre-cut houses but scaled back their operations significantly. Hodson, Jeff. Prehistoric Houses. The concept of the kit house likely originated in the U.K., but after these mail-order residences were introduced to the U.S. market in the late 19th century, they became synonymous with the American dream. Once the materials arrived, a customer would arrange for a local carpenter or contractor to assemble the house on a piece of property owned by the customer; or a customer who was handy with tools might assemble all or part of the house himself in several weeks or a few months' time. Vintage House Plans 70 historic years of American 20th century residential architecture . [4][11], The ease of construction and cost savings of kit houses appealed to many would-be homeowners across the economic spectrum, from blue-collar workers to the affluent. She lists a variety of kit house companies. [11], The popularity of kit houses was attested in a roundabout way in the 1920 silent comedy One Week starring Buster Keaton, which shows Keaton constructing a build-it-yourself house that turns out all wrong. In addition, some companies, including Sears, Montgomery Ward, Gordon-Van Tine, and Harris Brothers, offered cash discounts and generous mortgage terms. [3][4] This description by researcher Dale Wolicki of kit house manufacture by the Gordon-Van Tine Company was typical of other kit house companies' efforts as well:[4]. [Click to enlarge any image] 1. While vacation cottages were its primary product, the comapny also offered small agricultural buildings such as chicken coops. See, harv error: no target: CITEREFHenry2009 (, From 1929 to 1940 or later, the company also produced, Gordon-Van Tine Company Historic District, "Kit Home Information," The Arts and Crafts Society, accessed 28 June 2011, "Historical Notes on Kit and Precut Homes," Kithouse.org, accessed 28 June 2011, Wolicki, Dale, "Magazine," gordonvantine.com, accessed 28 June 2011, "Questions and Answers on Sears Homes," Sears Archives, accessed 5 July 2011, "What Is a Sears Modern Home?" In addition to their pre-cut houses, some companies also sold only the house plans (with the homebuyer purchasing all the materials locally) or non-pre-cut versions of their houses (at a lower price), leaving it up to the buyer to arrange for construction and carpentry work. Jun 12, 2018 - Sears, Harris Brothers Co. Gordon Van Tine. Sears Homes See a curated timeline of these structures below. See more ideas about vintage house plans, vintage house, craftsman house. By Tim Lambert. ⋅ Chronology of homes ⋅ History of homes ⋅ Home listings by date: Images of Homes ⋅ 1908-1914 ⋅ 1927-1932 ⋅ 1915-1920 ⋅ 1933-1940 ⋅ 1921-1926 ⋅ Contact Sears Holdings Archives ⋅ Contact a fellow enthusiast ⋅ Register as an enthusiast ⋅ Homes Q&A ⋅ By 8,000 BC people in the Middle East had begun to farm. For example,[9]. I continue to be amazed by the variety of things you can buy on … Flint marketed its buildings' ease and speed of construction. Mike Jackson, FAIA, is a Springfield, Ill.–based architect and a visiting professor of architecture at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. ), by hand by carpenters. However, they weren’t as popular as the kits sold by Sears and Roebuck. Sears was not the first company to offer mail-ordered "kit homes," but by the time the catalog was discontinued in 1940, Sears is estimated to have sold between 70,000 and 75,000 houses. To fully appreciate the impact of the Sears kit homes, it’s important to understand the reach of the company’s famous catalog. Started by brothers William and Otto Sovereign in 1906, the company remained solvent and family-owned until it shut its doors for the last time in 1981. Between 1908 and 1940, the company sold over 100,000 home kits. Meyba 1981-1992. We decided to go with Zip Kit Homes because winter was coiming fast and we needed something that was high quality, built fast and a great design. Illustrated Catalogue of Goods Manufactured and Supplied by W.C. Sper Ltd., London, 1903As “horticultural providers,” William Cooper Sper also offered designs for iron houses, cottages, and bungalows, as well as churches, chapels, and missions. Many of the wrought iron options feature stylistic treatments typical of the Victorian era with extensive use of galvanized corrugated iron. [43][44] Initially offered through Lowe's stores in Mississippi and Louisiana, in 2008 Lowe's began offering the cottages at all of its stores nationwide. Buyers, however, did not get their homes already made. We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. Fenner Factory Cut Homes, Ready Built House Company, Liberty Homes, Lewis Manufacturing, Bay City, Michigan – 1925 to 1973, Sterling Homes, International Mill and Timber Company, Bay City, Michigan – 1915 to 1971.
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