The Sears Houses of Markbreit Avenue

Recently, I was able to help one of my fellow kit house researchers, Cindy Catanzaro, who runs the "Sears Houses in Ohio" site, discover and identify some very early examples of Sears "Modern Homes" in Cincinnati, Ohio. Cindy did a nice write-up about what we found and how we found them. It's yet another example of how the "Great Sears Paper Trail" can lead us to Sears houses. In this case, the paper trail wasn't from mortgages or deeds, as I've written about in the past. This time, Cindy was able to use newspaper posts that referenced Sears Roebuck as the architect on the house plans for the houses we located. Cindy and I were then able to match up the houses to examples from the early years of the "Modern Homes" catalog. But go read the post "On the south side of Markbreit Ave. (Cincinnati)" for the rest of the story!

Sears Houses on Markbreit Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio
Photo shall not be reproduced without permission

Where are the Sears Houses - July 2022 Edition

Sears Mitchell - Bedford, Ohio

We're halfway through 2022 and thanks to a lot of hard work by kit house researchers across the US, the National Database of Sears Homes has passed 14,500 documented homes. We picked up the pace of locating houses since the last update, adding 500 new homes in less than 7 months (as compared to 9 months at the previous update). With that mark reached, it's time to post another update of "Where are the Sears Houses?"

Why You Should Be Authenticating Sears Roebuck Houses with Mortgages and Deeds

Regular readers know that I've spent a lot of time locating, documenting and authenticating houses from Sears Roebuck (and McClure and Montgomery Ward) using mortgages and deeds. To date, I've documented over 4,000 Sears Roebuck homes for the National Database of Sears Homes and a significant percentage of those were located by researching mortgage records. It's a method frequently used by myself and my fellow contributors to the National Database of Sears Homes and it's a big reason why we've been able to locate and authenticate so many homes. Because it's such an important part of the work that I do, I want to explain why I consider it the gold standard for authenticating houses from Sears Roebuck. 

Washington DC Area Sears Houses by the Numbers

One of the most researched areas of the country for Sears houses is in and around Washington DC. That research took another big step forward this week with the completion of a comprehensive survey of Sears Roebuck mortgages in the City of Alexandria and adjacent Arlington County, Virginia. My fellow kit house researcher Judith Chabot spent about 3 months researching over 200 mortgages from Sears Roebuck (and a couple dozen from other kit house companies). That work fills in a big gap in our knowledge of how many Sears houses were sold in the Washington DC region. Although not every Sears house was financed through Sears Roebuck, where we've been able to do comprehensive surveys, like Arlington County and Washington DC, we've found that they represent a significant number of the Sears houses built. With Judith's work completed, I wanted to share some numbers. Let's take a look! 

Sears Houses of Northern Kentucky

The state of Kentucky probably isn't on most people's radar as a hotbed of Sears houses. In the ranking of states with the most Sears houses, Kentucky sits at #11 with over 250 houses. It's a respectable number but pales in comparison to neighboring states like Indiana, with over 700, and the number one state in the country, Ohio, with over 3,000 documented Sears houses (as of February 2022). 

But in one part of Kentucky, you can find Sears houses in just about every town. In fact, over 80% of the Sears houses documented in Kentucky can be found in just 3 counties - Boone, Campbell and Kenton. In cities like Covington, Dayton, and Florence, you'll find examples of Sears houses of all sizes over the range of years that Sears sold homes. What makes that part of Kentucky the home to that many Sears houses? It's all in the geography. Let's take a look!