Good Houses Never Grow Old

As much as we hear about Sears kit homes, Sears was not the first to enter the pre-cut house business. The Aladdin Company, based in Bay City, Michigan, started selling houses in 1906, two years before Sears. (Your new house would go up instantaneously, the same way Aladdin's genie built a castle overnight!)

Aladdin stayed in business until 1983 and sold more houses than Sears (about 140,000, according to their promotional literature). 

I was browsing through Aladdin's 1954 catalog and saw this:

 

This ad puts into perspective how old the catalog homes featured in this blog are. Back in 1954, Aladdin was showing "then and now" photos to demonstrate the durability of their houses and how they "survive the ravages of time". 

The house at the bottom left of the ad still exists today in Bay City and it is 112 years old!

 

2157 5th St., Bay City, MI. Photo from Realtor site.