In Sussex, many mail-order homes still stand

For many, the concept of ordering most anything you need from a company like Amazon is relatively recent.

In reality, consumers have had single source, remote shopping available for over a century.

Even in the late 1800s, department store retailers like Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck & Co. produced voluminous mail order catalogs that offered most anything you might need.

The annual arrival of those huge catalogs was often a major event in households nationwide.

In a turn of the century Sears catalog, for example, you could buy clothing, tools, toys, fabric, appliances, seed, dishware, pots and pans, live chickens, bicycles, furniture, cars, tractors and, believe it or not, a new home.

“Sears was the Amazon of the day,” said Michael DiPaolo, executive director of the Lewes Historical Society.

Indeed, in addition to supplying a staggering array of consumer products for the home and farm, Sears in the early 1900s may have been the largest home builder in the country.

Sears offered customers more than 370 different home designs in its catalogs and nearly 80,000 of those mail order kit houses were sold between 1908 and 1940. Catalog homes were mail ordered and delivered unassembled by train to a point near the building site. Sears would even carry the mortgage, if needed.

Kit costs were often under $2,500, excluding assembly and the price of the building lot.

“I cannot even imagine the sight of all that lumber coming off a train,” DiPaolo said.

In 1908, Sears estimated that additional completion costs ran about $700, including the price of skilled labor to do carpentry, wiring, plumbing, painting and masonry work.

Certainly the total cost was affordable even at a time when the average wage was 22 cents an hour and the standard income was between $200 and $400 annually.

But Sears was not the only supplier of mail order kit homes. Montgomery Ward also offered them as did several other companies, including Aladdin, which was based in Michigan.

“The available variety was amazing,” said DiPaolo.

Though comprehensive records do not exist, Delaware hosted a number of prefabricated kit houses from Aladdin, Montgomery Ward, Sears and others. And the majority were delivered and assembled in the early 1900s, prior to World War II.

The unifying factor in Delaware was typical: Many of the purchased homes were placed on lots in proximity to train tracks because, overwhelmingly, the kits were delivered by rail.

“Both of our Sears houses (in Lewes) are near the railroad,” said Di Paolo.

So, what was the attraction of a mail order house, bought sight unseen?

Elizabeth Peebles wrote her University of Delaware graduate thesis on Aladdin kit houses in the state and she touched on the lure of buying a pre-fabricated home.

Part of the rationale, she said, was that people had developed a high degree of faith in the quality of catalog products, based on previous purchasing experiences. That, even though a home purchase was the single largest expenditure for most families.

“It would be difficult for someone to have the confidence to purchase something as major as a whole house by mail, unless the cultural norm of reliability and acceptance had been previously established,” she said.

DiPaolo said it also was a way for homeowners, particularly in small towns and rural areas, to buy something that was unique.

“It gave the masses access to sophisticated and elegant designs, it gave them something within reach,” he said.

“It was certainly a reflection on what was going on in the late 19th and early 20th century,” said Laurie Turkawski, architectural historian in the Delaware Historic Preservation Office.

While Peebles found at least 48 Aladdin kit homes in Delaware, the total number of mail order dwellings is unknown because records have not survived.

Nevertheless, the Lewes Historical Society has located two surviving Sears mail order homes. And Peebles found at least one Aladdin kit house that was shipped to a Rev. H.R. Hall in Lewes although it is not known if that example has survived.

Joanne and Mac McNaught bought an original 1930s Sears kit house in Lewes, planning to fix it up for vacation use.

“It was pretty rough when we bought it in 1997,” she said.

But it also was built on a lot that was in sight of the rail line.

“A lot of these kits came on a train and we are half a block from the track,” she said.

The other known Sears kit house in Lewes is owned by Karen and Bobby Kollias.

The McNaughts moved to Lewes permanently in 2007. And their renovated Sears jewel was on the Lewes Historical Society homes tour last year.

Even with a wide choice of Sears styles to choose from, the McNaught home was one of the most basic designs, although they are not exactly sure which model it is.

“It certainly was one of the most rudimentary models,” she said. “On the other hand, that made it a lot more affordable.”

Indeed, a Sears catalog from 1926 showed houses as cheap as $772, delivered. The “Rosita” model, for example, was a single story home available at that price. It had four rooms but it also may have needed an outhouse because the floor plan did not show a bathroom.

The most expensive was the ten-room “Magnolia” which cost $6,488.

Identifying a kit house can be difficult. In Milford, for example, what some thought was a Sears mail order house was, according to its owner, actually constructed in the mid-1800s before catalog homes were available.

On the other hand, Peebles found an Aladdin kit home on Walnut Street in Milford that was assembled in 1917 and is still occupied.

The house, according to an Aladdin catalog, was “The Rochester” model, which cost a whopping $1,387 delivered. The home had four bedrooms — three upstairs — and a single bath.

In Laurel, the local utility company bought a Sears kit house in 1921 so its manager and his family had a place to live. The modest dwelling is still occupied — but not by a utility executive.

“We called it the electric light house,” said Kendal Jones of the Laurel Historical Society. “And as far as I know, it is the only Sears house in town.”

In Georgetown, one of the most spectacular Sussex County examples is a Sears “Crescent” model that was listed in a 1926 catalog but was probably not built until the 1930s. The base cost was listed at $1,704 though a more expensive model with larger rooms and an enclosed rear porch was available for $2,039.

“To the folks who like a touch of individuality with good taste, the Crescent makes a special appeal,” the Sears catalog said.

Another Sears house was located in Selbyville but it represented a different type of mail order: The owners bought only the plans from Sears and had the lumber milled locally.

The plain style bungalow “is markedly unadorned,” according to a summary by the state preservation office.

In the 1930s, a farm in Ellendale was subdivided and the developer placed Montgomery Ward kit homes on seven of the lots. All have survived.

Though the kits were marketed in the Montgomery Ward catalog, the state preservation office said they were probably built by another company, Gordon-Van Tine of Bay City, Michigan. The kits were sold under the name “Wardway Homes.”

While mail order kit houses were sold throughout Delaware, historic preservation groups have been slow to catalog the surviving dwellings.

“I don’t think there are a lot of people who are familiar with that history, including the Sears kits,” said Russ McCabe, retired state archivist.

Peebles, on the other hand, is emphatic about the historic value of mail order kit homes.

“I think it is very important to preserve these houses as they are a distinctive cultural movement in this country,” she said. “Much of the historical record has been lost and these houses are disappearing quickly.”