Catalog image of Sears Elmhurst (1930) Image courtesy of Judith Chabot |
- $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!
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!
On the other side of the street are two more Sears houses, a Sears Dover and a Sears Willard.
134 Park Dr - Eastchester, New York - Sears Elmhurst Image courtesy of Google Maps |
130 and 134 Park Dr - Eastchester, New York Sears Cambridge (right) and Sears Elmhurst (left) Image courtesy of Bing Maps |
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.
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.
Catalog image of Sears Elmhurst (1930) Image courtesy of Judith Chabot |
View a list of other known Elmhursts including links to posts about several of them.
Beauties! Great job with the research.
ReplyDeleteI love that Willard's nice, cedar shingle siding. Good color, too. I'm surprised that the mortgages for the Dover and the Willard were as high as they were, and it's interesting to find a documented case of a builder buying the kits.
Judith
Sears-House-Hunter.blogspot.com