McClure Dutch Colonial in Ann Arbor, Michigan

1752 Jackson Ave - Ann Arbor, Michigan

Michigan was home to three of the largest kit house companies - Aladdin, Lewis and Sterling - all based in Bay City, Michigan. Saginaw, Michigan, located upriver from Bay City, was the home of one of the smaller kit house manufacturers, the McClure Company. McClure isn't well known, even among kit house researchers. One reason for that is the short period that McClure sold homes - less than 10 years - from 1917 - 1926. Another is that very little information is available about the McClure homes and the homes that they sold. In my research, I've only seen 3 copies of catalogs for McClure homes. But through various sources, I've been able to track down a number of examples of homes from McClure, a couple of which I’ve previously shared here. The latest is this McClure Dutch Colonial that is currently for sale in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

McClure Homes - A Timeline

The McClure Company sold kit houses to customers in the Midwest and Eastern United States. Examples of homes from McClure have been documented in at least six states and Washington DC. Newspaper ads and articles imply that McClure houses were built in other states but examples from those states have not yet been documented.

The McClure Company was based in Saginaw, Michigan. It had an established history in the lumber and manufacturing business prior to entering the kit house manufacturing business. Nationally, McClure was best known for silos that they marketed and sold to farmers in the United States. Located upriver from Bay City, Michigan, the home of three of the largest kit house manufacturers - Aladdin, Lewis and Sterling - McClure appeared to use its experience in the lumber, mail order and manufacturing business to sell kit houses from 1917 to around 1926. In addition to its headquarters in Saginaw, McClure appears to have used its mill in Cairo for fulfilling orders. That facility predated McClure entrance to the housing business.

Authenticated Houses - Part 1

Authenticated Sears Crafton
Yorktown Heights, New York

I'm starting a new series on the blog to help highlight kit houses that I have been able to authenticate. My hope is to do this on a bi-weekly basis, sharing houses that I have authenticated since the last update. Kit house researchers use a variety of ways to authenticate houses and I'll be sharing the methods I've used to authenticate the houses as part of this feature. By highlighting these houses, I hope to be able to assist some homeowners in identifying their kit house and showing that they own the real deal! I also hope to show other kit house researchers and those interested in researching their houses how we go about doing that. On to the houses!

Kit House Presentations

Catalog images of Sears Stratford
(1929 Special Supplement)
Images courtesy of Antique Home

Interested in hearing us speak about kit houses? Check out our list of upcoming presentations. Interested in having us present? Contact us to schedule a presentation in your community!


2024 Scheduled Presentations




View a list of previous presentations.

Sears Modern Homes on Wikipedia

One of the things I've learned in reading articles online and in print about Sears homes is that one of the most frequently consulted sources about houses from Sears is Wikipedia. Whether it's cited or not, it becomes quickly apparent when an author has done their research using the Wikipedia entry for Sears homes. I've spent some time trying to ensure that the entry is factually accurate so if that's an author's only source of information, they could do a lot worse. Still, it's bothered me that for years, the entry was titled "Sears Catalog Homes". While the article content made clear that the homes sold by Sears weren't limited to catalog sales or examples from the catalog, the title left a different impression. So I'm pleased to see that the title for the entry was recently updated to "Sears Modern Homes". I think this change is a good one for a couple of reasons:

1. It reflects the fact that "Sears Modern Homes" was the branding used by Sears for the houses that they sold through their "Modern Homes" catalog. 

2. By removing the reference to "catalog" in the title, it makes the title more consistent with the article content, which reflects the numerous ways that the "Modern Homes" were sold - through mail order catalog, from "Modern Homes" offices and by salesmen employed by Sears Roebuck. 

It may seem like a small change but hopefully, it will ensure that the "Modern Homes" name appears in more articles in the future and more readers will learn about all the ways that Sears sold their "catalog" homes.