A Rare Sears Glen View Model in... Glenview!

1038 Golfview, Glenview. Photo courtesy of Nina Yoo.

The Sears Glen View.

The house has had dormers added and the two porches enclosed. The garage was changed to a front entry. The shutters are gone.

"Who would not take pride in being pointed out as the owner of this beautiful Colonial home?" asked the 1936 Sears Modern Homes catalog. 

Sears featured the Glen View model throughout the Great Depression in its 1933, 1936, and 1937 catalogs. This particular Glen View was built in 1933. 

The Glen View is a huge, beautiful house that requires a 100-foot wide lot. It is a Garrison Colonial, a style that was very popular during the 1930s. Basically, it's a colonial where the second story overhangs the first story.

It has an attached double car garage, four large bedrooms, two full bathrooms upstairs, and a half bath on the main floor. "Kitchen is sunny, well equipped and very efficient. The long living room has a beautiful bay, book-shelves, fireplace and French door," according to the Modern Homes catalog.

Sears sold the Glen View "not already cut." This meant that the lumber was not pre-cut at the factory. Sears sometimes did this for the larger homes in an effort to keep the price down.

This is a very rare Sears house and is likely the only one ever built. In the period when the Glen View was offered for sale, Sears was selling only a few hundred houses a year on average. I would bet that most of the houses sold during those years were the popular models that had sold well for years, not the pricey Glen View.

Original blueprints for the Glen View model.

This particular house overlooks the 17th hole of North Shore Country Club. 

The rear of the house has a monstrous addition. The left side is the part of the unmodified original house. Photo from Realtor site.

Comparison of the front entry today with the catalog illustration.

This is basically what the entry looked like originally. The front door is a replacement and I have no idea what those beams are on the ceiling. Photo from Realtor site.

Again this is what the original living room looked like. It is about 19' x 27'. The fireplace is in the same position and those doors originally led to a porch that has now been enclosed. Photo from Realtor site.

As in the original floor plan, there was a dining room off the living room. Photo from Realtor site. 

Today, the dining room and kitchen have been combined. Photo from Realtor site.

 

 

This bedroom has not been changed from the original floorplan. It sits above the garage and is 26' wide. Photo from Realtor site.

 The original owners were David S. and Esther Betcone. David was the head of the architectural service at Sears Roebuck. They paid approximately $18,500 for the house.

The next owners were Dr. Charles W. Crowe and his new bride, Mary Jane. They were married in 1936 and were living in the house by 1937. He was a dentist with an office in Evanston.

That big house must have been a lot for Mary Jane to take care of because they had a live-in servant listed in the 1940 census.

Mary Jane Crowe in 1936. Photo courtesy of the Chicago Daily Tribune.

In 1951, the Crowes moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The new homeowners were Howard Dudley "Dud" Murphy, his wife Dorothy, and their three kids. Dud was a partner at Price Waterhouse & Co.  He also served as president of the Executive Club of Chicago. They owned the house until 1967.

A Sears Lewiston Imposter in Arlington Heights

We've talked about how there were look-alike house plans offered by the kit home manufacturers, plan book companies, and local builders. As an example, I present a Sears Lewiston imposter in Arlington Heights.

735 N. Hickory, Arlington Heights.

Sears Lewiston. If you check your neighborhood, you might find a look-alike house. The Lewiston had many imposters.

Awfully similar, huh? The homeowner believes the house is a Sears Lewiston, but he was unable to find any markings or other evidence that prove it. I believe the reason he could not find any evidence is because the house is not a Lewiston.

The giveaway that this house is an imposter is the front dormer. The dormer on the house on Hickory is too short. The dormer on the Lewiston almost reaches the top of the roof.

Additionally, the right side of the Lewiston was not flush with the rest of the structure like the right side of this house is.

The house on Hickory was built in 1932 or early 1933.  Clarence Wilcox and his wife Josephine were the original homeowners and are listed in the July 1933 telephone directory at that address.

Just for comparison, here is a legit Sears Lewiston in Des Plaines.

1483 Maple, Des Plaines. Check out the right side of the house--not flush.

Real Lewiston versus imposter. See the difference?

The real Lewiston was built by Oscar Blume for his own family. The address changed over the years. Originally it was 1465 Maple.

Surprise! It's a Sears Cape Cod!

220 E. Foster Street, Arlington Heights

 
Yes, this is a Sears house, remodeled so much it is unrecognizable today. 

I was contacted by a reader, Larry Johnston, who said his grandparents built a Sears Cape Cod model in south Arlington Heights. His mother, Mary Lou Marx, sent me these historic photos of the same house shown above. Let's compare those to the catalog picture.

The Sears Cape Cod with shutters. Note the cornices on the roof.

The Marx house in 1946. That's eight-year-old Mary Lou Marx in front. There were no front steps yet! The extra chimney was because the house originally had a coal-fired isinglass base burner in the living room rather than central heat. 

The Marx house in 1974. The cement front porch is the same today.

This Sears Cape Cod was built in 1937. In 1937 the neighborhood was not officially part of Arlington Heights (it was in Elk Grove Township). The Marx's house was originally white with green trim and green-striped canvas awnings.

The Cape Cod was small four-room house--30 feet wide and 22 feet deep. "Crisp neat lines, almost brisk in their simplicity, glow proudly with New England tradition," reads the description in the Modern Homes catalog. The Cape Cod came in two different floor plans. This house was the smaller model with the side door.

Photo from 1974 shows the side door.

When originally built, the Marx house had stairs to the attic on the living room side (where the plans show a closet). In the 1970's the attic stairs were moved above the basement stairs and the attic was finished as a single large bedroom.

The first owners were Benjamin and Lillian Belle Marx. Benjamin, his brother, and their friends built the house themselves. They spent about $4000 on the Cape Cod. Benjamin was a tool and die maker. In 1940 he worked at the Buick Aviation Engine Plant in Melrose Park.

Benjamin and Lillian Marx (and Fluffy and Rowdy) in front of the house about 1950. The  composite "brick" siding (later removed) was added about that time to help insulate the house.

The Marxes raised their daughter, Mary Lou, in the house. The area was so rural, she walked a mile every day to a one-room schoolhouse on Arlington Heights Road--in the 1940's! Mary Lou remembers her mother cooking oatmeal for breakfast on the base burner stove. During World War II, the family raised chickens for eggs and had a victory garden in the yard for tomatoes, carrots, peas, and beans.

Benjamin died in 1960 and Lillian died in 1975. The house was on a big parcel of land, but shortly after Lillian's death the house was sold and the property was subdivided into three lots (the two houses to the west were later built). 

The second story addition and the square footage added to the east side of the house were done in 1996. There still exist some features that hint at the original design.

Larry helped to remodel his grandmother's house in the 1970's. He wrote in email correspondence:

"It was DEFINITELY a Sears house. When we remodeled it in the early 70's, I remember specifically all the markings on the studs and joists. It was a 100% Sears house, including the original well pump was a Craftsman (if memory serves, it worked up until 1974). My Grandfather was a big Sears customer! 

"[The interior] had never been completely finished; I was the one in charge of digging through the bundles of unused baseboard trim, deciphering the faded stencils to determine which room they belonged in. I remember there was a 'decoding' list, it was old and faded even then, but clearly was labeled 'Sears.' We pulled off the Celotex wallboard, rewired to current code, reinstalled the wallboard and then paneled (yuck!) over that. Each stud had a stencil on it! I also remember the windows were original at that time; they were double hung with sash weights hung by rope over a pulley; when we opened up the walls I thought it was really cool the old weights were labeled 'Sears'."

The Marx house about 1975. According to Larry Johnston, one of the spruce trees in the front yard was donated to Arlington Heights in the 1970's for the village's annual Christmas tree.

Both Mary Lou and Larry have fond memories about how comfortable and cozy the house was.

Larry's younger brothers, R. Paul and David Vollmann, playing in the living room about 1975. "The gear driven fireplace damper (it was also a Sears--I remember helping to fix it once) was a luxury touch that still isn't very common today," Larry wrote.