The House that Sears Built--in Paris

This blog has a large number of readers from France, so in this installment, we'll discuss the house that Sears built — in Paris.

In 1931, the U.S. government commissioned Sears Roebuck to construct a full-scale replica of Mount Vernon (President George Washington's Virginia residence) at the Exposition Coloniale Internationale in Paris. The Mount Vernon replica (and two adjacent buildings) would house the official exhibits of the United States.

Charles K. Bryant, an architect from Richmond, Virginia, was selected for the project. Bryant had designed a Mount Vernon replica for a 1915 exhibition and still had the blueprints. 

The government awarded the Home Construction Division of Sears the contract for construction after Sears said it could complete the buildings in a few short months and do it at cost (the final price tag was $75,495). The materials for Mount Vernon came from the Sears lumber mill in Port Newark, New Jersey, and within 12 days of signing the contract everything was on its way to Paris. The wood was numbered, just as with the traditional Sears kit houses.

Every detail of the historic Virginia mansion was faithfully reproduced.The house featured a portico, a balustrade, and a pediment with an oculus. The structure was flanked by two colonnades. Crowning the roof was an eight-sided wooden cupola. Inside, Sears craftsmen replicated the original brass and bronze hardware, mantelpieces, staircases, trim, and cabinetry. If Washington himself had visited, he might have felt right at home.

Postcard from the Exposition Coloniale Internationale in Paris.

Another postcard.

Back of the postcard.

Sears proudly advertised its role in constructing the Mount Vernon replica to garner interest in their kit homes. "I had no idea that Sears built such fine homes", trumpeted the ad copy.

A feature on the Mount Vernon reproduction from the 1931 Modern Homes catalog.

Beginning in 1932, Sears offered a house in its catalogs that was loosely based on Mount Vernon. The model was inexplicably named “The Jefferson”. Sears described it as “a true example of Southern Colonial architecture.” 

The Sears Jefferson had a five-bay portico and a balustrade.

I should also mention that in 1932 Sears constructed the same Mount Vernon reproduction in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth. This house was taken down after the event.

After the Paris exhibition concluded, the building in France was purchased by Dr. Alexander Bruno, an American surgeon working in Paris. According to the Chicago Tribune, Dr. Bruno planned to reconstruct the house at his tuberculosis sanatorium in the French Alps. That plan never materialized. In 1936, the house was instead relocated to Vaucresson, a western suburb of Paris.

Dr. Alexander Bruno in 1918.

Since then, the Mount Vernon replica has served as a private residence. It is currently for sale for about $27 million USD.

Nearly a century after its debut, Sears’ Parisian Mount Vernon remains one of the company’s most unusual creations: a little piece of Colonial America tucked into the French countryside.