tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3725743381494749667.post6950107625291823088..comments2024-03-09T11:48:19.964-08:00Comments on Kit House Hunters: Washington DC - Sears Houses Over The YearsKit House Huntershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02724539014570751839noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3725743381494749667.post-26319972098935119242018-03-26T05:15:43.726-07:002018-03-26T05:15:43.726-07:00That is a rather abrupt end. Most likely, there we...That is a rather abrupt end. Most likely, there were Sears homes built in the area after 1933, but they are just not documented as such.Sears Homes of Chicagolandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06852344154514348451noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3725743381494749667.post-16708811039071084792018-02-27T07:11:08.622-08:002018-02-27T07:11:08.622-08:00Carin - That makes sense to me. Here in the Detroi...Carin - That makes sense to me. Here in the Detroit area, we don't see large numbers of kit houses in the City of Detroit proper because most of the residential development followed the pattern you described with developers building out entire neighborhoods in the teens and twentys. It was out in the streetcar suburbs that we see the large numbers of kit houses. Thanks tor sharing your insights, they are much appreciated!Kit House Huntershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02724539014570751839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3725743381494749667.post-61490089406352554592018-02-27T07:05:55.580-08:002018-02-27T07:05:55.580-08:00I've been thinking about the question of later...I've been thinking about the question of later-30s kit houses in DC, and – pending further research – I suspect it has something to do with the nature of the developments taking place in that period. The pattern of development that led to the use of kit houses in the teens and 20s seems to have been that smaller developers would buy up a few lots at a time in partially-developed "streetcar suburb"-type neighborhoods (i.e., really streetcar-oriented, but within DC) and put up a few houses from a given catalogue to sell on spec. The scale of this development was essentially infill where late-19th-c. developers had started working. By the 30s, development had largely been pushed to the very fringes of the District – as, for example, in Spring Valley, where developers like WC & AN Miller built whole neighborhoods featuring larger brick colonials and the like – not impossible to build from the higher end of what Sears offered, but distinct in terms of market, style, size, and developer's m.o. from the earlier infill with smaller frame houses. That's my hypothesis for the moment, but I'd be interested to see what Catarina makes of it from her perspective of having looked at the whole corpus of kit houses locally.Carinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06812963198439801851noreply@blogger.com