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! 

Making Lists - January 2022

Regular readers of this blog know that one of my kit house-related projects is contributing to a national database of Sears catalog and kit houses. As I shared in 2016, the database grew out of the need to have a centralized listing of Sears houses. Started nine years ago in January 2013, the Sears database has grown to over 14,000 documented homes with over 40 percent of those authenticated through various methods. 

While the Sears database is the largest in number of homes, it's not the only database we're working on. Just as there was a need to document houses from Sears, the same is true for homes from the other major kit house manufacturers. We now have databases for 9 regional and national kit house companies. Let's take a look!

Solving the Mystery of the Sears Houses of Southbridge, Massachusetts?

A number of years ago, I came across a 1939 newspaper article with a reference to a new 200 home Sears development in Southbridge, Massachusetts. 200 homes! Wow! At the time, I hadn't learned to be skeptical of such reports. But after doing some searching online, I didn't have any luck finding any information about this development. A quick look on Zillow and some searching around town didn't turn up anything that looked like Sears houses circa 1939. The article had implied that the homes were one of Sears new "Home Club" developments but like a couple of the other "Home Club" developments, I couldn't find any other information about it. 

Fast forward to this past fall and while searching Zillow for Sears houses, I came across a possible 1930s era Sears house in Southbridge. As I like to do when I find one Sears house, I started looking around the neighborhood and to my surprise, within a block of this house, I found another half dozen Sears houses from the same era including a couple rare examples. Was this the missing 200 home Sears development that had been mentioned in that newspaper article way back when? Let take a look!

The Biggest Little Sears House Communities

Certain communities are well known for the large number of Sears homes that can be found within their borders. Those places, like Carlinville and Elgin, Illinois, Washington DC and Cincinnati, Ohio, offer ample opportunities to see many Sears houses in person. Less well-known but just as worth the attention of kit house hunters are several communities that are smaller in size but just as chock-full of Sears houses. Some of these communities have far more Sears houses per square mile than their better known counterparts. So whether you're a resident looking to learn more about the Sears houses in your community or looking to take a road trip to view Sears houses, these communities should be on your kit house hunting radar. Let's take a look!

Where are the Sears Houses - January 2022 Edition

Sears Woodland - Albany, NY

Happy 2022! We're less than a month into the New Year and the National Database of Sears Homes has passed 14,000 documented homes. It took about nine months to go from 13,500 to 14,000 homes. But many of those 500 new homes added to the list were the result of a lot of hard work as my fellow kit house researchers did a lot of heavy lifting through mortgage records, some dating back more than 100 years, connecting those records to Sears houses. With that mark reached, it's time to post another update of "Where are the Sears Houses?"