Sears Testimonial Houses in Kansas City, Missouri

Recently, I've been looking for Sears kit houses in and around the Kansas City, Kansas/Missouri metro area. I wrote about a couple of Sears houses that I located in Prairie Village, Kansas, a suburb of the two Kansas Citys. While researching another Sears-house related topic, I came across one of the Sears promotion posters that I own that's titled "Honor Bilt Homes Make Happy Homes". The two-sided poster contains several dozen testimonials from satisfied customers from various cities in the Midwest and Eastern United States where Sears kit houses had been built. One of the cities that is featured on the poster is Kansas City, Missouri with 3 different testimonials. A check of the National Database of Sears Homes didn't reveal any testimonial houses for Kansas City so I decided to get looking! Let's see what I found!

ID this House! Sears Hawthorne

Catalog image Sears Hawthorne (1932)

I was recently scanning through real estate listings online when I spotted what looked like a rare Sears model, the Hawthorne. The listing included some great photos of the Hawthorne, a model that was offered by Sears Roebuck in the early 1930s. Those photos give us the chance to see some of the distinct elements of this model, details that could help us identify other examples of this house. As we only have one other example of this house on the National Database of Sears Homes and I've run across some look-a-likes for this model, I thought this house would be an excellent candidate for my "ID this House!" series. Let's learn to ID this house!

ID this house! Sears Van Dorn

Catalog image of Sears Van Dorn (1928)

Sears offered a number of Dutch Colonial Revival style houses in the Sears Modern Homes catalog. Many of these models were large, spacious homes. But Sears also offered several smaller, more modest houses in this style, the best known example being the Sears Puritan. Similar in size to the Puritan but not as well known is the Sears Van Dorn. While the Van Dorn may not appear as distinctive as the Puritan, it actually has several elements that I've found make it fairly easy to spot once you know what to look for on this model. Let's learn to ID this house!

Sears Oakdale in Prairie Village, KS

7341 Belinder Ave - Prairie Village, KS
Sears Oakdale

Here in Michigan, we're a long way from Kansas. But sometimes an example of a kit house comes up that has to be shared. This Sears Oakdale in Prairie Village, Kansas is just one of those houses. It's a picture perfect example of the Oakdale on the outside with a gorgeous interior filled with original hardwood floors and unpainted millwork. The real estate listing from when the house was last sold in 2015 gives us the opportunity to take a "tour" of a well-kept Sears Oakdale inside and out. Let's take a look!

Thank you Livonia!

20085 Inkster Rd - Livonia, MI - Sears Bellewood

This past week, Wendy and I presented on "Catalog and Kit Houses of Michigan" for the Friends of the Livonia Public Library. We were happy to see so many people come out to hear our presentation. The audience came with many good questions and it gave us the opportunity to speak to several homeowners about their homes. Among the houses that we shared in our presentation was this Sears Bellewood on Inkster Road in Livonia. In addition to this house, we identified several other examples of kit homes from Lewis and Sears. Hopefully, we'll be able to authenticate these homes as kit houses.

Do you know of any kit houses in the Livonia, Michigan area? Share those with us in the comments!