Kit House Hunters: Lewis Sherman in Yonkers, New York

Catalog Image of Lewis Sherman (1924)
Image courtesy of Archive.org

I recently went back to work on researching Sears mortgages in Yonkers, New York for the time period between 1918 - 1925. As I was reviewing the Westchester County mortgage records for Yonkers, I came across a handful of mortgages from other kit house companies including Lewis Homes and McClure. I've previously found mortgages for McClure but this is the first time I've found mortgages for Lewis Homes. Even better, those mortgages led me to some examples of Lewis homes that I was able to identify. I'll be sharing the houses that I've found starting with the Lewis Sherman.

The Lewis Homes company was one of three major kit home manufacturers based in Bay City, Michigan. Lewis and its counterparts in Bay City, Aladdin and Sterling, sold tens of thousands of kit homes across the United States. When Aladdin first started selling kit houses, it obtained the lumber for those homes from the Lewis Manufacturing Company. In 1913, the two companies had a falling out and Lewis started selling its own kit homes under the Lewis Homes name.

By the time the Lewis Sherman was purchased in March 1924, Lewis was well-established, with a catalog that featured houses of all sizes and styles. Not long after this home was purchased, the Lewis company suffered a massive fire at their Bay City facility. The company rebuilt but the catalogs and homes offered by Lewis in the years after the fire under a rebranded "Liberty Homes" name were much more modest that the grander homes that were built in Yonkers in the early 1920s.

This Lewis Sherman had a mortgage from "Bay City Lewis Homes" in March 1924. As you can see from the photo below, it had a reversed floor plan from the Sherman as shown in the catalog.