Hyattsville, Maryland

I recently came across a nicely written article on the history of Sears homes by the Hyattsville Preservation Association of Hyattsville, Maryland. In that article it was noted that "Half a dozen or more of them [Sears houses] exist today in Hyattsville." Or more is right! I had a chance to see a lot of the Sears houses that still stand in Hyattsville while doing mortgage research in Prince George's County and have since supplemented that work with quite a bit of Google driving around the streets of Hyattsville and help from fellow kit house researchers. A number of the Sears houses that are located in Hyattsville have been previously documented. But I wasn't able to find a single source that listed all the houses in Hyattsville that are included on the national database of Sears houses. So I've put together a list of known Sears houses in Hyattsville for homeowners, residents and local groups like the Hyattsville Preservation Association to use for reference. Hyattsville, Maryland has some nice examples of Sears kit houses. Let's take a look!

One of my goals in writing about Sears houses is to help document those cities and towns where a significant number of Sears houses can be found. To date, we've located over 100 communities that have at least 15 identified Sears houses. While many of them have more identified Sears houses than Hyattsville, for the size of the community, Hyattsville has a respectable number of Sears houses.

To date, 20 Sears houses have been identified within the city limits of Hyattsville. Of those 20 houses, 18 have been authenticated with mortgage records. It's quite a diverse group with 15 different models being represented among those 20 houses. This portion of Prince George's County has a large number of Sears houses and we have found a few houses that have a Hyattsville mailing address but lie outside the city. For the purpose of this list, we have only included the houses that are within the Hyattsville city limits.

I still have a number of houses that have Sears mortgages that I haven't yet matched to a specific model. In some cases, I'm pretty sure which model it is but I want to do some more research before I add them to the list. Also, I still have some streets to research further to look for houses that were purchased without financing from Sears. There are a few examples already identified and I wouldn't be surprised if there are more out there. If more are found, I'll update the numbers on this post and the entries on the list.

View the list of Sears Houses in Hyattsville, Maryland

I wanted to share a few examples of some of the Sears houses that can be found in Hyattsville. There are several nice examples of Sears houses on the list that are definitely worth a look!

Sears Bellewood
This may be one of the best known Sears houses in Hyattsville. It's hard to miss it driving down the street. This is one of the few houses that we don't have documentation to authenticate but it has loads of Sears-specific details that make us confident that this is a Sears house. There are two known Bellewoods in Hyattsville.

5416 39th Ave - Hyattsville, MD - Sears Bellewood
Image courtesy of Zillow.com

Sears Lakecrest
This bungalow-style house was first offered as the Lakecrest and later as the Marion. This house had 2 mortgages from Sears for a total of $6,100 in September 1931.

6123 42nd Ave - Hyattsville, MD - Sears Lakecrest
Image courtesy of Google Maps

Sears Pittsburgh
We haven't seen too many examples of the Sears Pittsburgh outside the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area where you'll find them practically on every street. But here's an authenticated example in Hyattsville, Maryland.

4003 Longfellow St - Hyattsville, MD - Sears Pittsburgh
Image courtesy of Google Maps

As always, this is a work in progress and we would love to add more houses to the list. If you have information about any of these houses or any other possible kit houses in Hyattsville, please let us know in the comments.

Updated on July 30, 2018 to reflect a newly authenticated house. 
Updated on December 4, 2018 to reflect two newly authenticated houses.