Shortly after I moved in, someone told me that the Yellow House is a Sears house.Huh? So I did some surfing, and I learned these were early 1900th century pre-fab homes.

From 1908-1940, Sears sold about 100,000 homes through their mail-order Modern Homes program. Sears was neither the first nor the only company to sell mail-order houses, but they were the largest. Sears designed 447 different housing styles, from an  elaborate multi-story, to a simple cottage without an indoor bath. An outhouse was available for an extra charge.

The ability to mass-produce the materials used in Sears homes lessened manufacturing costs, which lowered costs for customers. Precut and fitted materials reduced construction time by 40% and Sears’s use of “balloon style” framing, drywall, and asphalt shingles greatly eased construction for home buyers.

“Balloon style” framing systems did not require a team of skilled carpenters, as previous methods did. Balloon frames were built faster and generally only required one carpenter. This system uses precut timber of mostly standard 2x4s and 2x8s for framing. Precut timber, fitted pieces, and the convenience of having everything, including the nails, shipped by railroad directly to the customer added greatly to the popularity of this framing style.

The Yellow House was built sometime in the early 1900s, so I looked for historic photos of the Sears houses. By golly, I found one similar: the Puritan (Model No. 3190), which sold for $1,947 to $2,475, depending on options. It certainly makes sense that a church would choose a Puritan model, especially considering that the Pilgrims and Puritans (Congregationalists) were one line of our faith ancestors.

The Puritan

Still, I don’t know for certain that it is a Sear’s Modern Home. The photo does not have dormer winders upstairs and the space between the door and the downstairs window looks more narrow. However, I read that each home had numerous options. On the other hand, the Sears archives state that their architects were skilled at prefabbing the popular styles of the day. So, the Yellow House style could have been an inspiration for the Puritan. Which came first, the Yellow House or Sears Modern Model 3190? I checked all the church archives and found nothing about the home construction, so this may remain a mystery.

I like to believe, however, that it is one of thousands of Sears’s prefabs that exists today in old neighborhoods. I also like to imagine running down to the train station to pick up the construction materials as they arrived in town. I like the history. The Sear’s website tells this story about one happy family:

“The hour has arrived. Dad gathers Mom and Sis into the carriage. He hops in the wagon with his brothers to ride off to the railroad station. The day and hour have come to greet the first shipment of your family’s brand-new house. All the lumber will be precut and arrive with instructions for your dad and uncles to assemble and build. Mom and Dad picked out No. 140 from Sears, Roebuck and Company’s catalog. It will have two bedrooms and a cobblestone foundation, plus a front porch—but no bath. They really wanted No. 155, with a screened-in front porch, built-in buffet, and inside bath (!), but $1,100 was twice as much as Dad said he could afford. In just a few days, the whole family will sleep under the roof of your custom-made Sears Modern Home.

Entire homes would arrive by railroad, from precut lumber, to carved staircases, down to the nails and varnish. Families picked out their houses according to their needs, tastes, and pocketbooks. Sears provided all the materials and instructions, and for many years the financing, for homeowners to build their own houses. Sears’s Modern Homes stand today as living monuments to the fine, enduring, and solid quality of Sears craftsmanship.”