Sears Elmhurst in Eastchester, New York

Over the past couple of months, I've had the good fortune to authenticate five Sears Elmhursts through mortgage records. Two of these Elmhursts are located in Westchester County, New York. I previously shared one of those Elmhursts located in Pelham, New York. The second of the Elmhursts is located in the Town of Eastchester, New York. Eastchester lies just east of the City of Yonkers, where I've authenticated over 30 Sears houses, so I expected to find Sears houses. But I wasn't necessarily expecting to find an Elmhurst. Even more interesting was what I found when I came across the mortgage record for this Sears Elmhurst.

Catalog image of Sears Elmhurst (1930)
Image courtesy of Judith Chabot

When you search mortgage records, you can often get a sense of the size of the house you might find by the amount of the mortgage. Modest mortgages often turn out to be modest houses. Five digit mortgages (in 1930 dollars) often turn out to be high-end kit house models or even custom houses. When I first came across the mortgages that led me to this Elmhurst, I about fell out of my chair. There were four mortgages on the same date between the Hilldale Manor Construction Company and Edwards D. Ford in the amounts of:

• $12,500 
• $11,500
• $10,000
• $9,300

Woah! These weren't your run-of-the-mill modest houses that were being financed through Sears. After a bit of searching, I was able to find the lots associated with the mortgages. 

• North 1/2 of Lot 32, Lot 33 and Lot 34 - Amended Map Hilldale Estates
• Lot 30, Lot 31 and South 1/2 of Lot 32 - Amended Map Hilldale Estates
• Lot 17 and Lot 18 - Amended Map Hilldale Estates
• Lot 13 and Lot 14 - Amended Map Hilldale Estates

Plat of Hilldale Estates
Image courtesy of Westchester County Clerk

As you can see from the map, the Hilldale Manor Construction Company built these four houses in close proximity to each other. Based on the fact that the houses were financed together and probably built at the same time, it's likely that these houses were model houses designed to promote this development. Although people often think of kit houses as homes that were purchased and built by individual homeowners (and many were!) quite a few kit houses were purchased and built by residential developers. In some cases, this led to a large number of kit houses being built in a neighborhood. In this case, these four Sears houses were the only ones that I could find in the immediate vicinity.  

Once I knew where to look, I hopped onto Google Streetview to see what houses had been build by the Hilldale Manor Construction Company. Having seen a similar mortgage amount for the Elmhurst in Pelham, I was hoping that I was about to find another Elmhurst and I wasn't disappointed. Here's the Elmhurst!

134 Park Dr - Eastchester, New York - Sears Elmhurst
Image courtesy of Google Maps

What's was built next door? It's a Sears Cambridge! The Cambridge was the upscale version of the popular Sears Barrington model. It's worthy of its own post which I hope to do soon. Look at these two classy kit houses!

130 and 134 Park Dr - Eastchester, New York
Sears Cambridge (right) and Sears Elmhurst (left)
Image courtesy of Bing Maps

On the other side of the street are two more Sears houses, a Sears Dover and a Sears Willard. 

141 Park Dr - Eastchester, NY - Sears Dover
Image courtesy of Google Maps

143 Park Dr - Eastchester, NY - Sears Willard
Image courtesy of Google Maps

The Dover and the Willard are fine models themselves as you can tell by their price tags. But when it comes to design and finish, they're not nearly as grand as the Elmhurst!

Returning to the Elmhurst, you can see some of the distinctive details that help us identify an Elmhurst. With the mortgage record in hand, we don't have to guess - we know that this is a Sears Elmhurst. But it's nice to see how the details match up with the catalog views of the house. 

Catalog Image of Sears Elmhurst (1929)
Image courtesy of Antique Home

134 Park Dr - Eastchester, NY - Sears Elmhurst
Image courtesy of Google Maps

From this angle, you can see some of the distinctive details of the Elmhurst model including the face brick exterior with a half-timber and stucco finish on the second floor of the front of the house, the placement of the chimney, the tall narrow window that illuminates the main staircase and the small pediment-topped column that sits in front of the side entrance to the house. 

134 Park Dr - Eastchester, NY - Sears Elmhurst
Image courtesy of Google Maps

On the other side of the house,we can see the three equally spaced dormers for the windows into the front bedroom, the upstairs bathroom and the back bedroom as shown on the floor plan below.  

Catalog image of Sears Elmhurst (1930)
Image courtesy of Judith Chabot

Unlike some of the other authenticated Elmhursts we've seen, it appears that this Elmhurst doesn't have any additions so the floor plan of this house should match the floor plan as found in the Sears Modern Homes catalog.

Catalog image of Sears Elmhurst (1930)
Image courtesy of Judith Chabot

Finding and authenticating my fifth Elmhurst was pretty exciting. But I wouldn't be surprised if there's at least one more in the area in and around New York City. If you know where one is, let us know!

View a list of other known Elmhursts including links to posts about several of them.