Sears Bandon in Philadelphia, PA

Probable Sears Bandon • 800 Crestview Road, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Circa 1923
The deep bump-out on this side, is for the dining room. 

Sears Bandon in my 1923 catalog.
You can see it online in the 1921 catalog, here.

We're excited to present yet another of the rare Sears homes: a Sears Bandon !  Last year, I found two of them in the Pittsburgh area, authenticated via mortgage records signed by Sears trustee William C. Reed, but I think that we only had one or two on our national database until that time.  The Bandon is a bungalow that is reminiscent of the larger, more elegant Sears Hollywood, especially because of the dormer with inset center window, that both models share. The Bandon is also known for two big, deep bump-outs, one on each side of the house.  

The two bump-outs on the Bandon are both for dining areas-- oddly, one is called a "dining porch", and the other is a "dining room"... even though the dining porch area is still inside the house!  Here is the floor plan, on which you can see that one side of the house has that deep bump-out up near the front of the house, and the fireplace-side of the house has the deep bump-out near the middle of that side:

Floor plan for the Sears Bandon. You can see that the bump-outs are both in dining areas.
Source: 1921 Sears Modern Homes catalog

Another thing that we love on the Bandon, is the presence of the typical 5-piece bracket that Sears included on many of its bungalows (the Hollywood has the 5-piece brackets on one version, but much different brackets on the version that has the inset-window dormer).  On the Bandon, we see the brackets all along the eaves of each side, and on the dormer:

Typical Sears five-piece brackets on the dormer of the Bandon in Philadelphia, with its inset center window.
It looks like the center bracket was removed so that they could enlarge the windows there.

Sears five-piece brackets shown on the catalog image of the Bandon's dormer.

Sears five-piece bracket close up on the side of the Bandon in Philadelphia.

Series of five-piece brackets along the left side elevation of our Bandon on Crestview Road.  And, there's that "dining porch" bump-out!

It looks like the garage for this Bandon must also have come as a kit from Sears -- more five-piece brackets!

And, here's another Sears garage with five-piece brackets, this one goes with one of the Pittsburgh-area Bandons.

Look at that nice tongue-in-groove porch ceiling! That's typical on these solidly-built homes of the 1920s.
Atthe top, you see the dormer with its inset center window, and five-piece brackets

If you'd like to see the real estate listing for this Bandon, here it is on Zillow (many of the photos in this blog post are from the listing), and here's one of the listing's images of the interior, showing that the house has nice, solid woodwork around the doorways and windows:

Sears Bandon interior view, at 800 Crestview Road, Philadelphia, PA.

Who Lived Here?

County records say that this house was built in 1923.  I am not 100% sure of the residents at that time, but the 1930 residents (according to the census of that year, and the 1930 Philadelphia City Directory) were the Schwartz family.  Carl L. Schwartz, a teacher, and his wife Elisabeth, lived in the house until at least 1940. They had two girls, and two boys.  Carl and Elisabeth were married in 1911:

Carl and Elisabeth were married in 1911, and here's their marriage certificate!

And, here is the Schwartz family in the 1930 U.S. census, listed at this address:

And here is the Schwartz family listed at 800 Crestview Road in the 1930 city directory for Philadelphia.  I didn't find them listed at this address in 1925, so they may not have been the very first residents of the Bandon, but they certainly lived here for a good while.

Here's one last image of the Sears Bandon at 800 Crestview Road, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Thanks to researcher Andrew Mutch for finding the listing for this Bandon, and allowing me to blog about it.  If you'd like to learn a bit more about the Bandon, and see the two Bandons in Pittsburgh,  visit my previous blog post.

800 Crestview Road, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • probable Sears Bandon

800+ Sears Houses In Pennsylvania!

Andrew Mutch is one of the researchers in our group, and he loves crunching numbers with the list.

Our national database of Sears houses, which now lists just shy of 7200 houses, has reached a milestone for Pennsylvania: we have now found over 800 Sears houses in that state, the majority of which are in the greater Pittsburgh area.  To celebrate, I thought I'd showcase a few recent finds.

Now, when I say, "we", I mostly mean our cracker-jack, Google-driving, Sears-House-Finding group member, Karen D.  Karen herself lives in a Sears Hamilton in Pittsburgh, and has developed a love of finding us Pittsburgh houses to add to our list. And, man, is she good at it! Let's look at a few that Karen has found:  A Sears Osborn, a Sears Wilmore, and a Sears Hillsboro.

Sears Osborn

Sears Osborn • 5242 Towers Terrace, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The Sears Osborn model was first shown in the 1916 catalog (according to our very favorite Sears house reference source,  Houses By Mail), as model No. 264P244, and was renamed the Osborn when Sears began giving names, instead of numbers, to its house models. It was offered through 1929. We love the look of it! This one, in Pittsburgh, has a matching garage, too.  The catalog image to the right here, is from the 1918 catalog (available here, on Archive.org).   The image above, shows that our Osborn in Pittsburgh is the reverse floor plan -- the covered side porch is on the other side from that shown in the catalog.

Here's the side porch of our Osborn on Towers Terrace.

The catalog also shows a few images of what you could expect your Sears Osborn to look like, on the inside:

And, here's the floor plan, as shown in the 1921 catalog:

And, the matching garage!

Sears Wilmore

The Wilmore was first offered in 1930, but was called the Jewell that year. In 1931 and 1932, it was called the Jewel (with one l ), and then from 1933-40, it was called the Wilmore, so that's what we usually call this model when we find it, unless we have a verified build date before 1933. It's a great-looking house that was very popular, and several other kit and plan-book companies had competing lookalike models. We've found many Wilmores, especially, it seems,  in New York State and New England.  This one is in Natrona Heights, a community in the greater Pittsburgh area, that lies within the township of Harrison, in Allegheny County. It's about 24 miles northeast of Pittsburgh (source).

Probable Sears Wilmore • 1213 Fairmont Avenue, Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania

 Here's the Wilmore as shown in the 1935 catalog, thanks to our friends at AntiqueHome.org:

There is usually a furnace vent chimney to the left of the larger front gable, but this house has a chimney in a different spot, and the side section of the house, where the living room is on the original floor plan, has been enlarged.  I wonder if they re-organized the interior to extend the original dining room and turn it into a living room, off of the kitchen?

Here's the same model, offered in the 1932 Sears Modern Homes catalog, as the Jewel.

Here's the same model, its very first year, 1930, the only year it was sepelled with double-l at the end: The Jewell.

Floor plan for the Jewell, which did not change when the name changed to Jewel and Wilmore. You can see where a re-modeling to turn the dining room area into a living space off of the kitchen, would work well.

1940: The last years of the Wilmore, and the last year of the Sears Modern Homes catalogs.

And one last photo of this very attractive house.

Sears Hillsboro

This brick-veneer model, offered by Sears from 1932-1937, is another of Sears English-cottage-influenced models with a pointy front gable.  It has a nice, large front porch, big front chimney, and is one of the very few models that Sears offered with an attached garage.  This house in Pittsburgh, however, looks to have a separate attached garage, tucked under the side porch, so perhaps they turned the original garage space into living area. 

Probable Sears Hillsboro • 118 Poplar Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Everything looks to be in place in this Pittsburgh Hillsboro, including the decorative stone work around the door, and on the big front chimney. The space that you see on the back of the house, above, is normally an attached garage. I wonder how it is being used in this house, which is, by the way, the reverse floor plan to what is shown in the catalog.

The floor plan and catalog image, both from the 1935 catalog, were made available by our friends at AntiqueHome.org.  

The floor plan for the Hillsboro shows that it usually has two side doors, one going into the kitchen area, and one leading into the garage. That second side door into the garage space is missing on the Poplar Street house, lending more credence to the supposition that the garage space was turned into extra living space. 

If you'd like to see an authenticated Sears Hillsboro, I wrote about one that I found a mortgage for, in the city of St. Louis (MO), here, in an earlier blog post. 

There's that added, tucked-under garage.

Our research group's thanks go out to Karen for providing us with so many interesting finds in Pennsylvania!

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For more information on who we are, and what we do, visit our website: SearsHouses.com

Aladdin Pomona in Martinsburg, West Virginia

Probable Aladdin Pomona • 22 Upper Road, Martinsburg, West Virginia (source)

Fellow researcher Andrew Mutch (Kit House Hunters) recently shared with us the real estate listing for this great-looking Aladdin Pomona, in West Virginia.  We don't have any authenticating material for it, but it looks to match the model beautifully.  

To the right, you see the Aladdin Pomona as shown in my 1918 Aladdin Homes catalog. It's a great match.  

Below, you'll find a number of photos from the real estate listing, as well as a few images from the catalog, showing the floor plans (there were two -- this one, with upstairs bedrooms, must have been Plan 2), and interior drawings. Enjoy!

From a previous blog post of mine.

From a previous blog post of mine.

Source: Daily Bungalow

• To learn more about Aladdin kit houses, read this September 2016 blog post of mine. It features an Aladdin Pomona in Greenfield, Illinois.
• To see an Aladdin Pomona in the Pittsburgh area, see this December 2016 blog post of mine, and scroll down to the second house shown.