The Sears Kimberly--the Skywater's Big Sis

In 1927, Sears Roebuck introduced two new models that looked very similar: The Kimberly and the Skywater. 

The Sears Kimberly, from the 1930 Modern Homes catalog. It was sold from 1927 to 1931. The little window in the front is in a bedroom closet.

The Sears Skywater. It was sold from 1927 to 1938.

The sticker price of the Kimberly was double or triple the price of the Skywater, depending on the year.

Why the difference?

The Skywater was classified as a mere summer cottage, while the Kimberly was of top "Honor-Bilt" quality.

The Skywater was a smaller house, despite the resemblance to the Kimberly on the exterior. It didn't have a full bathroom or a basement.

The Kimberly floor plan.

The Skywater floor plan. All you get is a toilet.

Some of the construction specifications for Honor Bilt homes like the Kimberly. Honor Bilt homes were the finest quality sold by Sears. Joists, studs, and rafters were to be spaced 14 3/8 inches apart. 

Some of the construction specifications for the summer cottages like the Skywater.

The Kimberly did not sell well nationally and only a few have been identified. 

1031 Logan, Elgin. The front entryway has been enclosed, and the little window in the closet has disappeared. The Kimberly in Elgin has a reversed floor plan. Photo from Realtor site.

The house layout today reflects the original floorplan. On the left side is a bathroom sandwiched between two bedrooms. There is a large addition on the rear that accommodates a new kitchen. Photo from Realtor site.

Undated photo of the Kimberly. The entrance was already enclosed back then. Photo from Elginbungalows.com.

The enclosed side porch. Photo from Realtor site.

In the Kimberly, the front door opens directly into the living room (just like with the Skywater). The arched window now looks out onto the enclosed porch. Photo from Realtor site.

There is a dining room next to the living room, when originally it was kitchen. The kitchen is now in the rear of the house in a new addition. Photo from Realtor site.

Photo from Realtor site.

There is a new galley kitchen in a large rear addition. Photo from Realtor site.

This is the front bedroom and the front-facing closet that abuts the front door. Photo from Realtor site.

The attic is ready for another bedroom. Photo from Realtor site.

Robert  F. Spears received financing from Sears Roebuck in November 1928. He was a watchmaker for the Elgin Watch Company. In 1954 he moved to Arizona.

According to researcher Rebecca Hunter, the owner retains all the original paperwork from Sears Roebuck.

A Cinderella Story

In the years after WWII, many consumers were tired of the boring tract homes going up all over the country. Tens of thousands of ranches were built, and the suburban sprawl seemed endless.

In 1953, designer Jean Vandruff had the idea for affordable ranch houses that looked like the cottages depicted in fairy tales. He named his creations Cinderella Homes. 

9070 Lubec St., Downey, CA. This is the first Cinderella house that Vandruff designed. Photo from Realtor site.

The houses included such stylistic features as steep gables, upturned eaves, shake roofs, scalloped fascia, diamond-shaped window panes, decorative shutters, and other "gingerbread" touches.

Vandruff and his brother rolled out a development of 168 Cinderella homes in West Anaheim in 1955, and other developments in southern California soon followed. When the first model homes opened, there was so much customer demand that the builders started showings at 4 a.m. 

One of the thirteen original Cinderella models.

The Cinderella homes were a massive hit with the public. Vandruff's house designs were licensed to other builders, who in turn built them elsewhere in California and also in places as far away as Texas and Oklahoma.

Another Cinderella model, from the Cinderella Homes sales brochure.

There is a gorgeous book about Vandruff and his houses called The Cinderella Homes of Jean Vandruff  by Chris Lukather, if you are looking for more information.

As someone who finds houses, I wondered... are there storybook ranches in the Chicago area? The Vandruff brothers did not have any developments here. However, other architects in the 1950's and 1960's created similar designs in order to capitalize on the Cinderella craze. 

One day, I stumbled across the Brickman Manor subdivision in Mount Prospect.

This development was constructed around 1960-1961. 

There were initially six models available for purchase in Brickman Manor. One of the houses was the "Broadleaf" ranch.

The Broadleaf was three bedrooms and 1.5 baths. Doesn't look Cinderella-y.

The architect of the houses in the Brickman Manor subdivision was A.J. Del Bianco who specialized in budget ranch houses. Del Bianco wanted to give customers options and also wanted the houses to look different. So, with each model, there were three elevations from which customers could choose.

An alternate elevation for the Broadleaf was a fairytale look. 

1214 N. Crabtree Lane, Mount Prospect. The windows have been replaced, but the decorative bargeboard remains. 

Another Broadleaf at 1210 N. Crabtree Lane, Mount Prospect.

Floor plan for the Broadleaf.

Later the company sold a bigger, more expensive storybook ranch with four bedrooms and two baths called the Westleigh. I didn't see one of these in the neighborhood, but I may have missed it.

A Sears Sherburne That Escaped Its Fate

7601 S. Bennett Ave., Chicago. 

The Sears Sherburne.

The Sears Sherburne is a Craftsman style house that is "strikingly handsome", according to the description in the Modern Homes catalog. 

This Sherburne in South Shore has had its porch enclosed, lost its original wood shingle siding, and lost a couple windows on the second story, but the left side reveals it to be a Sherburne.

(All photos are from the sales listings unless otherwise indicated.)

One of the distinguishing features of the Sherburne is the bumpout for the stairway (compare to the illustration). There is a door underneath. The small double windows on the upper left are in the stairwell and the very corner of the rear bathroom. Capture from Google Streetview.

The Sherburne floor plan. The Sherburne in South Shore sits on a double lot.

Once inside, we can see what were spaces for the original front four windows and front door. 

The first floor has been opened up a bit. The dining room is on the right side. I assume that is a newer replacement column on the left side.

How Sears showed the living room of the Sherburne.

The Sherburne has a unique stairway! You can see the tiny window on the second floor. 

One of the bedrooms has a door that leads out to the front deck.

There is that small window in the corner of the second-story bathroom. 

I am not sure when this Sherburne was built. There was a mention in the 1919 Modern Homes catalog about a Sherburne being built in "South Chicago, Ill." (Thanks to researcher Matthew Hendrickson for noting this.) Is this the same Sherburne? Nobody knows.

 

In June 1914, the lots that the Sherburne sits on had not yet been developed. The model was sold from 1911-1923.

 

In 1923, Olivia and David L. Bengson lived in the house. They may have been the original owners. David, a tailor,  owned a nearby business.

Olivia died in 1924 and David died in 1930. Other Bengson family members lived in the house for a few more years.

Beginning in the 1930's, the house rapidly changed owners, until around 1944. Russell Roberts then purchased the house. (Russell's daughter, Delores, had a daughter who told me about the existence of the Sherburne. "Family lore" said the house was from Sears.) The Roberts sold the house in 1965 and that's when the Sherburne slowly fell into decline.

By 1973, kids from nearby South Shore High School were dealing drugs in the backyard of the house. Was it abandoned?

In 1976, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) took ownership of the house. When someone uses an FHA loan to purchase their home and fails to repay it, HUD takes the property back after it has gone into foreclosure.

The house was repeatedly listed for auction in 1976 and 1977. Nobody wanted it. You can imagine the condition it must have been in. The Sherburne was in big trouble.

The owners who were foreclosed on reacquired the house somehow. But their financial woes continued.

In 1992 the county took possession of the house due to nonpayment of taxes. The Sherburne had now been in decline for almost 30 years. But still it hung around.

In 2010, the city flagged the house as an "imminent danger to the public." An inspector reported:  "Premises now dangerous as vacant and open, uncompleted and abandoned, or vacant and boarded." During this period, the house was owned by Mellon Bank.

Mellon sold the house to a developer in 2011. The Sherburne just quietly sat there for years, but somehow never got demolished.

The house in 2015. The house originally had the double windows on the second story. Capture from Google Streetview.

After 2018, a company finally restored the house to the way it is today. It's astonishing that the Sherburne was able to escape its fate and reclaim its position as the prettiest house on the block.