Could your home have been purchased from a Sears catalog?

Can you imagine buying your home from a catalog?  From 1908 – 1940 Sears Modern Homes program offered over 500 ready to assemble “designs” from bungalows to mansions.  A quaint, three-room and no-bath summer cottage called the Goldenrod could also be purchased. The outhouse was sold separately. The details of construction and completion of the home was enclosed with a shipping schedule and mailed to the customer. The pre-fab houses were sent by rail and arrived pre-cut with a set of specifications and instructions on how to put it together.
There is a large collection of Sears Modern Catalog Homes still in existence. The Crescent Hills section of Hopewell VA has 44 homes. Elgin, Illinois has the largest known collection of over 200 homes. There are some homes in Pennsylvania as well.
If you want to learn more about these homes go to the Sears Archives website. Sears no longer has records but has suggestions on how to find out if your home might be from Sears. Rosemary Thornton, the author of The Houses That Sears Built offers this “How to Identify a Sears Home Kit” at wikihow.com.

So how's that for some fancy catalog shopping?