Sears Rembrandt in Bloomfield Township, Michigan

Catalog image of Sears Rembrandt (1925)
Image courtesy of Archive.org

Wendy and I recently did a presentation for the Greater West Bloomfield Historical Society on kit homes in and around West Bloomfield Township, Michigan. A couple houses that were featured in the photo tour section of the presentation are located in the northwest portion of Bloomfield Township, which lies directly east of West Bloomfield Township (of course!) Somehow in the process of doing some last minute edits to the presentation, I accidently deleted the slide for the Sears Rembrandt that we found in Bloomfield Township. For those who attended the presentation, here's one that we missed sharing!

The Sears Rembrandt was one of several different Dutch Colonial models that Sears offered during the 1920s. The Rembrandt was only offered for a few years - 1924 to 1927 - but we have been able to document a couple examples of this house locally. We found this particular Rembrandt through a mortgage record. Thankfully, we had that record because the natural landscaping in front of the house makes it hard to see from the road and we likely never would have spotted this otherwise. Even stopping for photos, we weren't able to get a clear shot of the house. But you can see several elements of the Rembrandt in the photos that we took. As you can see from the photo below, this Rembrandt has a reversed floor plan that places the sun room on the opposite side of the house as it appears in the catalog.

2360 Greenlawn - Bloomfield Township, MI - Sears Rembrandt

The mortgage for this Sears Rembrandt was for $6,050 between Harry W. Ploppert and Walker O. Lewis, the trustee for Sears Roebuck. The mortgage was filed in September 1928, which is noteworthy as this model was last offered in the 1927 catalog. But there's been a number of examples of authenticated Sears houses that were constructed a year or two after the model was last offered in the catalog. These authenticated examples make it clear that Sears was willing to sell customers discontinued models.

2360 Greenlawn - Bloomfield Township, MI - Sears Rembrandt

This area of Bloomfield Township includes several of the finest houses that Sears offered. We'll feature the rest in future posts.