When a Three‑Room Cottage Cost More Than a Sears Eight‑Room Home

In 1904, a man in Arlington Heights paid around $3,000 to build a tiny three‑room cottage with kerosene lights and no running water. Five years later, Sears would sell you an eight‑room house with an octagon tower (and a bathroom!) for half that price.

The Daily Herald today featured an article by columnist Margery Frisbie. She wrote about Henry Leark, who, in 1904, built his family's house in Arlington Heights on North Mitchell. Leark paid for a house plan and then went to the local lumberyard to get the supplies for the three-room house. Frisbie wrote: "Leark built three rooms, which cost between $2,000 and $3,000 for lumber, roofing, sand, gravel and sewer tiles."

Let's compare Leark's cost for his conventionally-built three-room cottage with the cost to build a much nicer Sears catalog house five years later.

Modern Home No. 167 (later called the Maytown) was one of Sears’ popular early models. The catalog described it as “a well‑proportioned house which affords a great deal of room at a low cost,” and it delivered on that promise.

Modern Home No. 167 from the 1909 Modern Homes catalog.

Unlike Leark’s modest three-room cottage, Modern Home No. 167 was an eight-room house with high ceilings. It featured an octagon turret, crystal leaded windows in the front parlor, and colored leaded art glass sash for the hall. The floors and trim were clear yellow pine, the siding was cypress, and the roof was cedar shingles.

And the price?

With most of the building materials supplied by Sears, Modern Home No. 167 could be built for about $1,690 (including labor, cement, plumbing, brick and plaster).

An actual Sears No. 167 in the suburbs (720 N. 12th Ave. in Melrose Park), built around the same time as Leark's house. (Google Streetview)

This example clearly demonstrates the significant cost savings that homeowners could realize by buying a house from a catalog. Sears used economies of scale to provide top-quality lumber and materials for less. According to the Sears sales literature: "we buy raw lumber direct from the best timber tracts in America". Lumber was pre-cut to length and labeled for easy assembly. In a world before power tools, that was a massive labor savings — and it reduced waste to almost zero.

Stories like Leark’s highlight just how revolutionary Sears kit homes were. Local retailers couldn’t compete with a huge mail‑order company’s supply chain. Sears and the other kit home manufacturers made it affordable for young, working-class families to have well-built, modern homes in neighborhoods like Arlington Heights.