Exhibition of New Castle mail order homes at Historical Society
by Amy Pappas
January 18, 2008
Between 1908 and 1940 Sears Roebuck and Company manufactured and sold an estimated 100,000 mail order homes through its Modern Homes Catalogue. These were not pre-fab homes, but homes to be assembled from a kit. Sears offered financing, furnishings and complete home decorating assistance. The production of Sears Homes from kits epitomized the age of mass production and brought the new industrial phenomenon to the business of real estate.
Hundreds of Sears homes were built in Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties, including ten homes in New Castle featured in an exhibit opening at the New Castle Historical Society on Feb. 2, 2008. The Sears homes were most prevalent in towns like Ossining, Pleasantville and Briarcliff Manor.
Shoppers paradise: 447 models to choose from
There were 447 architect-designed models to choose from that ranged in cost from $650 for a simple bungalow to over $5,000 for a 10-room mansion. There were three lines of homes, calibrated for customers’ differing financial means: Honor Built, the most expensive, Standard Built, moderately-priced and Simplex Sectional, often 2 - 3 room bungalow homes without heating and indoor plumbing. These simple buildings were usually used as fishing or hunting cabins.
There were 48 sales offices throughout the country where customers could meet with salespeople to modify their floor plans and customize their orders. If a customer did not live near a sales office the entire transaction could be done through the mail. Factories and lumber mills were built throughout the country to churn out all the components of a modern home.
The kits were shipped via railroad boxcars and delivered via flatbed trucks to the home site. Since the Northeast and Midwest had the most rail lines, these regions have the largest concentration of Sears homes.
Ten New Castle Sears homes featured in exhibit
The ten New Castle Sears homes represent nine different models in many shapes and sizes. Some have been extensively remodeled while others have been barely changed. They originally cost between $2,000 and $3,500 when built in the 1920s and 1930s. Today, some are worth millions. Come to the exhibit to see the original drawings and floor plans of our models and what they look like today.
The New Castle Historical Society is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoons between 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.
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