The house that Sears built (*some assembly required)

There's no place like home, particularly when it comes in 30,000 pieces from a Sears mail-order catalog.

Gary and Pat Robert have such a house. Built in 1911, the Dutch colonial, two-story frame house at 24 N. Middle St. in Cape Girardeau was assembled from a Sears kit costing about $1,000. The house, which the Roberts bought in 1989 and restored, has been designated by the city as a local landmark.

While it's not the only Sears house in Cape Girardeau, it's the only one that has made it on the city's landmark list. The Roberts say there are at least three Sears houses in their block of Middle Street between Independence and Themis.

John Bry, who graduated from Southeast Missouri State University with a degree in historic preservation in 1995, estimates there are more than 20 Sears kit houses in Cape Girardeau. City officials say they've never tried to identify them.

But such houses may get more public attention when author Rosemary Thornton visits Cape Girardeau this weekend.

Thornton's book on the subject, "The Houses that Sears Built: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sears Catalog Homes," was published in April.

She will speak about Sears homes at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Cape Girardeau Public Library. Admission is free. Thornton advises those who believe they are living in Sears houses to bring photographs of their homes to the lecture.

Can spot them easily

Thornton, who spent three years researching her book, said she now has little trouble recognizing Sears houses despite the fact that the Chicago-based company produced about 370 different styles, ranging from bungalows to antebellum-style mansions.

"I can usually spot them pretty quick," she said.

Bry and Thornton, both enthusiastic preservationists, say Sears houses -- built between 1908 and 1940 -- are worth saving.

They would like to see such houses identified so they can be preserved rather than torn down or their architectural features masked by vinyl siding. Many of today's homeowners don't realize they are living in Sears houses, Bry and Thornton say.

Between 1908 and 1940, more than 75,000 Sears homes were built nationwide. Shipped in railroad cars, the homes included everything from lumber for the house frame to siding and shingles, and doors and windows. They came with 750 pounds of nails, 27 gallons of paint and a 75-page instruction book.

Many of the ready-to-assemble homes came from a Sears plant in Cairo, Ill.

"You could buy a whole house from a catalog and have it delivered to your door," said Bry, who now heads up the Main Street downtown redevelopment program in Urbana, Ohio.

'Ultimate do-it-yourself kit'

No one gave them much thought back then. Standard Oil spent $1 million building 156 Sears houses for its coal mine workers in Carlinville, Ill., in 1918.

Today, such houses are viewed as part of America's architectural history.

"This was the ultimate do-it-yourself kit," said Thornton, although many people hired carpenters and other workmen to erect the houses.

In 1908, the materials for a Sears house cost from $495 to $4,150, Thornton said. By the late 1920s, some of the more elaborate Sears houses cost as much as $6,000.

Sears was one of several companies that offered mail-order houses in the first several decades of the 20th century. Others included Montgomery Ward and Aladdin.

After selecting a house design from the Sears Modern Homes catalog, Thornton said, customers were asked to send in a dollar. By return mail, they received a list of materials and full blueprints. When the buyer placed the order for the home-building materials, the $1 was credited toward the purchase.

A few weeks after the order was placed, the materials -- 30,000 pieces in all -- would arrive in two railroad boxcars at the nearest train depot. A leather-bound instruction book told homeowners how to assemble the pieces.

Sears estimated in 1908 that a carpenter would charge $450 to assemble a two-story home. A painter would want $34.50 to paint the house. The plasterer's bill would be about $200, which included nailing up 840 square yards of wooden lath and applying three coats of plaster, Thornton said.

The kits didn't include materials for the foundation. Sears estimated that 1,100 cement blocks would be needed for basement walls.

Well-built homes

Thornton said Sears houses used quality building materials and were well-built. "I have yet to see one that is not square and straight and true," she said.

Pat Robert couldn't be happier with their mail-order home, which has a claw-foot bathtub that she and her husband believe came with the Sears house kit.

"I love old houses," she said as sunlight streamed through the living room bay window one October afternoon, spotlighting the pine floor. "They have more character to them."

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123