A Custom Sears Home on the Hill

Beginning in 1930, Sears began heavily promoting their custom home design and construction services.  Instead of choosing from standard house plans, customers could work directly with a Sears architect to design the house of their dreams. Sometimes, these custom houses would loosely resemble kit house models found in the Modern Homes catalogs.

Chicago Tribune ad from 1931. Sears could build you a custom house "costing from $35,000, down to homes that may be owned for a little as $6.00 a week." 

One custom Sears home from this era still stands on a hill in Highwood.

43 Pleasant Ave., Highwood. The house was built in 1930.

In the springtime, this home nearly disappears behind lush foliage!

This custom Tudor Revival cottage features a steeply pitched cross-gabled roof, prominent front chimney, arched entry door with stone surround, and asymmetrical brick-and-limestone façade. The walls are multi-toned brick with limestone blocks. Its tuck-under garage takes advantage of the hilly lot.

The house resembles the Sears Colchester, capturing the same Tudor aesthetic found in many Sears kit homes of the early 1930s.

The Sears Colchester, from the 1930 Modern Homes catalog.

The house has three bedrooms in total.

The house was purchased in July 1930 by George C. and Ruth Kenry, shortly after their marriage. The couple financed the house through Sears Roebuck, taking out a mortgage for $3,350.

George was the chief train dispatcher at the Highwood station for the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad. Ruth owned a candy shop in Waukegan.

Beyond his work on the rails, George was also president of the Waukegan Flying Club. The club helped found the Waukegan airport in the summer of 1928 when commercial aviation was still in its infancy.

The Kenrys sold the house in June 1933 to James F. Gherardini.

Nearly a century later, the house on the hill still reflects the dreams of its first owners and the vision of Sears’ architects. 

Highwood has more Sears homes to see!

Copyright Disclaimer: All photographs in this post (unless otherwise noted) are from real estate aggregate Redfin.com and are used in this post for the purposes of education, consistent with 17 USC §107.

The House That Roy Built

The nationwide search for Sears Roebuck houses began in the mid-1970's after The Wall Street Journal published an article about them. Before that, few people knew about Sears houses since they had not been sold in almost 40 years.

However, one group who did know about them were the original owners.

In October 1977, the Detroit Free Press ran a story about Roy Weese and the Sears house he built in Royal Oak, Michigan. The article was distributed nationwide through the Knight-Ridder wire service.

Roy holds the blueprints in front of his house. At 86 years old, he was still living in the Sears home he had built half a century earlier. 

Nearly a century later, Roy’s Gladstone still stands today at 1408 Maxwell Avenue (Google Streetview). 

Back in 1926, Roy purchased a Gladstone model and financed it directly through Sears Roebuck. The Gladstone was a two-story, six-room home with an efficient floor plan and no wasted space.

Roy had never built anything in his life.  Undeterred, he moved his family into a tent on the building site and began the project. The first task was to dig the basement. He dug the 24' x 24' hole with nothing but a hand shovel. When the foundation was complete, the family moved into the basement while construction continued.

Roy told the reporter: 

“You look at the roll of blueprints and you’d think I was going to build a factory. Sometimes I thought I bit off more than I could chew.”

According to Roy, he paid a total of $3,996 for the Gladstone – $2,796 for the materials and $1,200 for add-on costs like hiring a plasterer and electrician.  Occasionally, he paid a carpenter to teach him how to tackle certain tasks, such as hanging a window. He also got help from his nephew and brother-in-law.

Despite the challenges, Roy managed to finish the home, starting in June and completing the house in spring of 1927.

Only two pieces were missing from the house kit: an exterior trim piece and a floor support. Sears instructed Roy to get replacements from a local lumberyard and send the bill directly to them.

Roy’s story is just one of thousands. Across the country, Sears houses still stand, symbols of an era when determination turned blueprints into family homes.

One of the First Sears Kit Homes: a No. 52 in Palatine

38 W. Robertson St., Palatine.

Sears No. 52 house, from the very first 1908 Modern Homes catalog.

The No. 52 in Palatine is an incredibly rare example of a concrete block house from Sears Roebuck.  It is one of the earliest homes offered in Sears’ first mail-order catalog in 1908, and the model was sold for six years, from 1908 to 1914.

Around the turn of the century, concrete block was the trendy new material for ambitious homeowners. Rock‑face molds gave these houses the appearance of cut stone at a fraction of the cost. The fad collapsed around World War I, which explains why Sears discontinued the No. 52 and other concrete block models during this period.

While Sears sold fewer building materials with concrete block homes than with traditional frame houses, they still supplied the block-making machines along with millwork, finishing lumber, roofing, pipes, gutters, windows, doors, paint, and lath, among other items.

The living room bay window in the catalog illustration is still there on the left side behind the enclosed porch.

The right side of the house matches the floor plan exactly.

One of the most intriguing questions surrounding the Palatine No. 52 is whether it is among the earliest Sears houses ever built--or even the first!

The model dates to 1908, the very first year Sears offered kit homes. Sales were modest in those early years. (By 1912, Sears reported selling just 1,340 homes total.) Only a handful of houses from 1908 and 1909 have been identified nationwide, making surviving examples like the Palatine No. 52 especially significant.

Cook County records list the house as being built in 1913, but I believe it was built a few years earlier.

The 1910 census appears to place a cement worker, John W. Vogt, living on this lot with his wife, Mary, though they were listed as renters. Although street numbers were not yet in use, neighboring households help pinpoint the location. Given his occupation, it raises the question: could Vogt have been involved in constructing the No. 52?

If the Vogts were in the house by April 1910, construction occurred in 1908, 1909, or early 1910. These dates align with the model’s availability, and it would make the Palatine house among the earliest Sears homes in the Chicago area, where the earliest documented examples date back to 1909.

I believe the Vogts lived in the house until around 1923, when the house was then occupied by Otto and Clara Schroeder, who would become long-term owners. Otto remained in the home until his death in 1958, and Clara continued living there until 1962, when she sold the property.

That year, the house entered a new chapter when it was purchased by the family of Jane Prochnow. Jane, who grew up in the house, has shared both her memories and interior photos—and she still lives in the home today.

The front door leads into an entry hall. 

There is the bay window in the living room, and a colonnade separates the dining room. 

There is a formal dining room, and the swinging door leads to the kitchen. 

Work in the kitchen reveals green flooring and pink tile. 

More evidence may still be out there on the original owners and the year of construction. Early Sears homes are difficult to document. If you have information about this Palatine house, I’d love to hear from you.