Sears Elmhurst Number 13!

1116 S. Main Street, Reidsville, North Carolina • Sears Elmhurst • 1930

We have found another Sears Elmhurst! And, when I say, "we", I actually mean Lara Solonickne, who writes the blog Sears Homes of Chicagoland.  Lara has been researching Sears homes for a number of years, and, in addition to blogging about them, she offers a few classes and bus or walking tours on Sears homes, especially in the Chicago area.  Lucky for me, she likes to keep her blog to Chicago-area kit homes, because this means that I get to blog about yet another wonderful find of hers (don't forget about that great find of hers of a Sears Milton, Sears No. 178, and Sears Saratoga, in New Bern, North Carolina, that I wrote about here.)

The Sears Elmhurst, from the special brick collection 1929 catalog.
Thanks to AntiqueHome.org for making this catalog available.

The Elmhurst was thought to be a rather rare Sears home, because, until the past year, we only had a few on our National Database of Sears Houses. However, researchers Cindy Catanzaro and Andrew Mutch have, in the past year, found a number of Elmhursts around the country (most authenticated with mortgages or newspaper ads), bringing our total to 12. But, today's find in Reidsville, North Carolina, brings the total to 13! And, as Andrew points out, there is at least one more out there: "...we have an example in one of the catalogs that does not match any of the known ones."

Without further ado, let me show you the beautiful interior shots provided on this very recent (one day old!) real estate listing (you can see the Zillow listing here, but the home is being listed by Century 21's Knowles Team, whom you can contact here). Click any image to enlarge.:

We often see real estate listings like this, that mention that the house in question is a Sears house.  Sometimes, that information is incorrect (the house might have been from another kit-house company, for example, or simply doesn't match any models anyone is aware of). In this case, we know this house very well, and this definitely fits the look of a Sears Elmhurst. Nonetheless, it will go on our list as "unauthenticated", because we do not yet know of any documentation related to the house (blueprints, mortgage, shipping labels, etc.)

Source: AntiqueHome.org

This great Sears craftsman-style staircase is a beautiful departure from
what we normally see on the Elmhurst.
Most other examples we have seen, used the black wrought-iron balustrade. 

Sears offered this newel in their 1929 Building Materials catalog.
However... the cut-out section on the Reidsville home's newel
looks to be skinnier than the Sears newel. Hmm. This is odd.
(Available here, on Archive.org)

This is the wrought-iron style balustrade
that we often see on the Elmhurst.
(source: Zillow listing for 7260 Northmoor, St. Louis)

Not sure that this is an original mantel,
as it doesn't seem to be available in the Sears catalogs.

Here's a photo of the bathroom from an authenticated Elmhurst in the town of Elmhurst, Illinois. You can see that the size of the room, and the placement of the fixtures and window, mimic those of this Reidsville home:

You can read about this Elmhurst in the town of Elmhurst, on Lara's blog.

The Elmhurst should have these three pointy dormers on one side
of the house (you can just make out the third, there, behind the white flowering tree).
You can also see an addition, under those first two dormers,
that is not a standard part of the floor plan.

This is my personal photo of a Sears Elmhurst in the St. Louis area, in University City. Note the three pointy dormers. This home is located at 7260 Northmoor, and was built for Miss Margaret Manning.  I found the mortgage for it this summer (though I am not the first to mention it in a blog post.) You can see many photos of its lovely interior, here, in this Zillow listing.

Miss Margaret Manning's University City (St. Louis) Elmhurst on Northmoor Drive, was used by Sears as a model home for a short while, after it was built. I found this newspaper ad in historic issues of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Sunday, September 28, 1930), and they show the same thing on the Zillow listing.  The Carthage (Cincinnati) Elmhurst (see blog post link, below), was also used as a model home. 

To read more about the Sears Elmhurst, check out these great blog posts by Andrew and Cindy (you'll find links to all of their blog posts about the Elmhurst, within these two posts):

• Kit House Hunters: Sears Elmhursts -- A List
• Sears Houses in Ohio: A Sears Model Home in Carthage (Cincinnati)

Let's finish off with a few minutes watching the video of the listing of this wonderful home: