Finding the Houses that Sears Built

Book excerpt: Sears offered more than 370 designs of kit homes from 1908- 1940, but nationally known Sears House expert Rosemary Thornton has discovered that Sears had 60 best-selling designs. In her new book she writes, "If you learn how to identify these 60 designs, you'll discover about 60% of the Sears Homes in your community.""Finding the Houses That Sears Built" contains more than 190 graphics and photos, as well as comprehensive, detailed and fascinating information on how to identify these 60 best selling designs. Each housing style is given two full pages in this 8.5 x 11-inch book. One page shows the house as it originally appeared in the Sears Modern Homes catalog (with house details and floor plans). An opposing page has two high quality photos of existing Sears Homes. In preparing to write this captivating book, Rose photographed more than 1500 homes in 11 states. "Finding the Houses That Sears Built" represents more than five years of intensive research, documentation, travel and study.