Gordon-Van Tine No. 115 In Oakes, North Dakota

Gordon-Van Tine No. 115 • 11675 Highway 11, Oakes, North Dakota • 1916

Model No. 115, Gordon-Van Tine 1916 Standard Homes Catalog

It looks like we've found a nice, big example of an early model: the Gordon-Van Tine No. 115.

The current owner of this home understands this to be a Sears & Roebuck house, an error which we've seen many times before. It's natural-- people hear that a house was built from a kit, and they only know of Sears houses, so they start referring to it as a Sears house, and over the years, that's what it comes to be known as. We've seen this, as well, when we can document the house as an Aladdin Homes company house (like this one, in Bristol, CT). 

But, this big beauty, out in the middle of lots and lots and lots of land, with a big lake behind it, sits on 4 acres, according to the real estate listing.  Unfortunately, there are no interior photos, but it's for sale by the owner, and just hit the market.

Not actually a Sears house, but it was bought from a kit-house, mail-order company: Gordon-Van Tine
source: Real estate listing, retrieved September 22, 2018

This is the first No. 115 that we've found. There were two more shown as "testimonials" in the 1916 Gordon-Van Tine Standard Homes catalog, but we haven't found them. This isn't a model that we really have on our radar, to tell you the truth, since we're normally focusing on Sears houses. But, I double-checked that this house was not in any Sears catalogs, and then tried Gordon-Van Tine, since it was a likely possibility... and, there it was.

From the 1916 Standard Homes catalog, by the Gordon-Van Tine company.

Here's A. T. Anderson's No. 115 house, shown in another catalog, with his full name, and town: Albert T. Anderson, Leland, Illinois:

From one of the last pages of the Gordon-Van Tine 1916 Ready-Cut catalog

What's the difference between Gordon-Van Tine Standard Homes and Gordon-Van Tine Ready-cut homes? Just that term, ready cut. This was still a house that was sold as a bundle, with the plans, and all of the needed parts for construction: framing lumber, flooring, lathing (those thin wood strips that plaster is applied to), roofing, siding, screws, nails, doors, windows, crown moulding, base moulding, door trim, window trim, bathtub, sinks, door handle hardware, hinges--everything you needed, except for masonry items, like plaster or brick (which you would procure locally). For the Standard Homes, the framing lumber was sent in standard lengths, and the builder still had to measure and cut. For Ready-cut homes, the framing lumber was pre-measured, pre-cut to size, and labeled with letters and numbers, and a guidebook was sent to explain how to put everything together. Still, it was all shipped by rail, ready-cut or standard cut, and the several box-car loads would have been picked up by the new owner (or his builder, if it wasn't the owner), using his own truck--- and, sometimes, of course, that was a horse-drawn vehicle. 

But, this house was not ready-cut, it was a Standard Home . Bundled as either method, these were quality homes, made of really strong, solid wood. The homes we've found around the country are often 100 or more years old, and still standing strong. Sometimes they may need some cosmetic sprucing, as this home may need inside, but you really can't find a better home than one of these kit homes, by any of the companies. 

This is the cover of the Gordon-Van Tine 1916 Standard construction homes catalog.

This is the cover of that same year's catalog by Gordon-Van Tine, for their Ready-Cut homes.

The Gordon-Van Tine company began as an offshoot of the U. N. Roberts Lumber Company, in Davenport, Iowa:

This information is from respected researcher Rebecca L. Hunter's website, http://www.kithouse.org/.

The Standard Homes models were shipped with quality materials. Here's what the catalogs explained:

Click to enlarge. This is from the 1916 Standard Homes catalog.

Let's not forget about the millwork, staircases, exterior porch rails and porch columns, and the paints, stains, and varnish:

Again, from the 1916 Standard Homes catalog.

The Gordon-Van Tine model No. 115 doesn't look to have been offered after 1916, and it was not offered in the Ready-Cut catalog, so we are confident that the house was built circa 1916, as the listing says. Take a look again at how well it compares to the catalog image, except that the left side of the wraparound porch is gone (or was never added):

11675 Highway 11, Oakes, North Dakota, set against the Gordon-Van Tine 1916 Standard Homes catalog page.
Google maps also calls this address 11675 90th St SE.

Here's a good side-by-side look, which you can click to enlarge:

11675 Highway 11, Oakes, North Dakota, set next to the Gordon-Van Tine 1916 Standard Homes catalog page.
Google maps also calls this address 11675 90th St SE. (Click to enlarge)

If you know how to read floor plans, and can tell where the marks are for windows and doorways, you'll see that the right side elevation of the house, also matches what the catalog floor plan shows:

The right-side elevation of the house at 11675 Highway 11, Oakes, North Dakota, set next to the Gordon-Van Tine 1916 Standard Homes catalog page. Note the floor plan areas indicated.
Google maps also calls this address 11675 90th St SE. (Click to enlarge)

Let's take a look at what the catalog page shows. If you click on any of these, they should come up pretty big, and in good resolution:

Gordon-Van Tine Standard cut Home No. 115, from the 1916 Standard Homes catalog

First floor layout of Gordon-Van Tine Standard cut Home No. 115, from the 1916 Standard Homes catalog

2nd floor layout of Gordon-Van Tine Standard cut Home No. 115, from the 1916 Standard Homes catalog

Gordon-Van Tine Standard cut Home No. 115, from the 1916 Standard Homes catalog

Gordon-Van Tine Standard cut Home No. 115, from the 1916 Standard Homes catalog

Gordon-Van Tine Standard cut Home No. 115, from the 1916 Standard Homes catalog

This house is truly rural, but not far from town, and has mail service to the house, according to the real estate listing. That's a biggy, out in the middle of North Dakota, I imagine, especially in the winter!

And here is the view in the other direction! Thanks, Google maps streetview!

The owner has lived here for 29 years, I believe he or she said, and suggests that this might make a fine Bed & Breakfast, or hunting retreat. Or, you know... a home!

From the owner's listing on Zillow.com.

This house has six bedrooms and one and a half baths... and was last remodeled in 1972. If you're interested, here, again, is the listing: 11675 Highway 11, Oakes, North Dakota

You can be very proud to own a Gordon-Van Tine house. But, let the current owner know it's not a Sears house, okay? We love it!

More Gordon-Van Tine Homes

Gordon-Van Tine homes are favorites of mine (in part because they had a mill here in St. Louis), and I've written a number of blog posts about them, and a few about Wardway homes (sold by Montgomery Ward catalog company, but cut and packaged and shipped by the Gordon-Van Tine company):

• Gordon-Van Tine Stratford in Washington, DC
• Gordon-Van Tine No. 619 in Washington, DC

• Gordon-Van Tine No. 535 in Webster Groves, Missouri (St. Louis area)

• Gordon-Van Tine president E. C. Roberts' GVT No. 560 in Davenport, Iowa

• Gordon-Van Tine No. 712 in Watertown, Wisconsin

• Gordon-Van Tine: How to tell the difference between a No. 535, No. 536, No. 560, and Glencoe

• Gordon-Van Tine: A Testimonial House in Pittsfield, Massachusetts

• Gordon-Van Tine's Lumber Mill In St. Louis (and a GVT Glencoe in St. Louis)
• Gordon-Van Tine No. 140, in Dansville, New York (with blueprints!)
• Gordon-Van Tine No. 121, in Eagle Grove, Iowa-- the testimonial house of A. L. Yearous
• Gordon-Van Tine No. 121 in Murrysville, PA (two of them, and a GVT bungalow, too!
• Gordon-Van Tine No. 536 in St. Charles, Missouri..
• Gordon-Van Tine No. 547 in Winsted, CT
• Gordon-Van Tine Dunham model, in Bennington, VT
• Gordon-Van Tine Sharon model in Fort Madison, IA..

And, if you're interested in Montgomery Ward's Wardway Homes:

• Wardway Devonshire in Delmar, NY and Wardway Barcelona model in Buffalo, NY

• Wardway Winthrop Model Home in Pittsburgh

• Wardway Fairfax models in Tonawanda, NY and South Charleston, WV

• Wardway Berkley in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Sears New Haven Model In Delmar, New York

Sears New Haven model • 30 Hawthorne Avenue, Delmar, New York

Sears New Haven model • 1931-32 Modern Homes catalog

It is certainly not every day that we run across a Sears New Haven model! In fact, this is only the second one on our National Database of Sears Houses in the U.S.  I can't take credit for finding this through extensive research... I ran across it while browsing real estate listings that mention Sears. Quite often, those listings are incorrect, showing simply a Craftsman house, and mistakenly connecting that term to Sears, or, if we're lucky, it's at least a kit house by another company, and we figure that out. It's always fun to find a kit house, no matter how it happens.

But, this house does seem to be a Sears house, and it certainly matches well with the New Haven model catalog images. The real estate listing mentions there being "original Sears and Roebuck builder's plans" available to see, though they, unfortunately, did not show an image of them in the listing. 

snippet from the real estate listing, available here

From what I was able to see of the inside, there are definitely areas that seem to match up well with the layout of the New Haven. We recently saw another real estate listing, in Ohio, that looked, on first glance of the outside, like it might be a New Haven, but a look at the interior, at the entry area and around the staircase, showed that it differed a good bit from the expected layout of the New Haven. All of that helped reinforce for us that this house, which matches well, is probably a New Haven.

Here's the full floor plan of the Sears New Haven, as shown in my 1931-32 Sears Modern Homes catalog.

The Front Door

One very distinctive element of the Sears New Haven, is this massive, rather intricate, doorway surround. It's unlike anything on any of the other Sears houses. It has a definite colonial look, but is more elaborate than the two simpler doorways marketed by Sears as Colonial Doorways, this one having dentil work and sharp cornice returns with thick, tapered moulding, a keystone, a fanlight, sidelites, and pilasters. It's beautiful.

The New Haven's colonial entry of 30 Hawthorne Avenue, Delmar, New York

Here are two of the simpler options that Sears offered as Colonial Doorway options. We often see the one on the left, on the later-years Lexington, and the one on the right, on the early-years Lexington.  These are both really porticos, not just doorway surrounds, providing a small covered area over the front porch, right in front of the door itself. The New Haven's entry is almost flat against the house,  providing no overhang.

Sears Colonial Front Entrances, offered in the 1930 Building Materials catalog (source)

Here is the later years Lexington, sporting the Colonial Front Entrance shown on the left, in the catalog. This one is in Flint, Michigan:

You can see a little more about this Flint, Michigan Lexington, near the end of this blog post of mine,
about a Lexington in St. Louis. 

Here is the very elegant earlier version of the Sears Lexington, in the 1923 Modern Homes catalog, with what looks like an enlarged version of the other Colonial Front Entrance that Sears included in their catalogs:

First version of the very colonial Sears Lexington, as shown in the 1923 Modern Homes catalog.

Here is a comparison of the front doorway as shown in the catalog image of the New Haven, and on the house at 30 Hawthorne Avenue:

Pretty nice match for this rather intricate doorway design, that is unique to the New Haven.

EDIT: Researcher Cindy Catanzaro pointed out to me that this looks to be about the same beautiful colonial entrance that is used on the very rare Sears Jefferson model. We've only found two so far, and you can see them both on Cindy's blog post about the Jefferson she found in Ohio.

You can just make out that this seems to be the same doorway style. This is the Jefferson in Ohio, that Cindy Catanzaro found.

The Haverhill, offered from about 1933-1940, also used the front entry that the New Haven used. Here it is in the 1938 catalog:

The Sears Haverhill, in the 1938 catalog.

Inside The Main Entrance

Here is a lovely shot, from the real estate listing (the source of all of the house photos in this blog post), showing the entry hall and staircase. A comparison to the first-floor floor plan, shows how well it matches the various doorways and walls of the area:

Click the image to get a much larger view

Here is the view from the back of this hallway, looking toward the front door:

Front entry hall of the probable Sears New Haven, in Delmar, New York

The Living Room

The listing's view of the living room shows that it matches up nicely with the floor plan. We can see the fireplace where it should be, and the single window to the right of it, as well as the correct placement of the entry into the dining room. We can even see the one window visible on the dining room wall on that side of the house.

Click the image to get a much larger view

Front Powder Room

Another view from the living room, shows the entry to what the floor plan quaintly refers to as the Vanity Room. It's another non-standard aspect of this home's design... we normally just see a good old bathroom, with no silly re-phrasing. As you can see on the floor plan, the original design does show a separate little window for the toilet portion of the Vanity Room, and then a window in the Vanity Room itself. It looks like this house has simply one big window there. 

Entry to the Vanity Room, as seen from the living room

The two front windows of the Vanity Room on the Sears New Haven

On our one other example of the Sears New Haven, in State College, Pennsylvania, we do see the correct two-window look in that front spot of the house:

Front view of the Sears New Haven in State College, Pennsylvania, at 432 West Fairmount. My apologies, but I do not know which researcher originally located this house, but I do know that we reference an online brochure about the kit homes in this town, which you can see here.

Here is that area on the Delmar, New York house:

The Vanity Room area of the New Haven. This area should normally have two smaller windows, according to the floor plan.

The other first-floor front windows are nice and large, but the catalog image for the New Haven shows even larger windows there, reaching to the ground, that almost look like French windows. That makes for an elegant look, but the Delmar, New York house (and the State College, PA house) has maybe a more cohesive look there, with all three first-floor front windows being the same:

Front elevation of the Sears New Haven, as shown in the 1931-32 catalog

Here's a comparison, showing how the Delmar, New York's New Haven has slightly smaller windows. 

Dining Room

The dining room windows and entry into the kitchen seem to show everything in place to match the floor plan of the New Haven in that area:

Click the image to get a much larger view

Here's another view of the lovely dining room, from the back of the room:

The Upstairs

The second floor seems to follow nicely along with the New Haven floor plan, as well. This is such a beautiful home. Here is one spot upstairs, where we can see into the entry of the bathroom, and into the front bedroom on that left side of the house:

Upstairs, left side of the house, showing the entries of the left front bedroom, and the bathroom at the end of the hall
(Click the image to get a much larger view)

Here is that bedroom, followed by the bathroom, which retains its original character:

The floorplan shows a master bedroom, in the front of the house, with an actual master bathroom and a dressing room. From what we can see into that first space off of the master, it looks like they have created a whole master bath out of that area:

So, the pretty pale yellow area here, is what is shown as "Dressing Rm" on the floor plan:

The master bath areas in the New Haven in Delmar, New York

The upstairs finishes off with two more bedrooms, in the back, with the larger of them being used as an office / library space, and their configuration and window and door placement seems to follow well with the upstairs floor plan:

The floor plan for this room shows these windows on these two walls.

That window and the little closet, are shown in those spots on the floor plan.

And... looking back out into the upper hallway. This door and window are correctly placed for the New Haven's floor plan.

If you're interested in knowing more about where in New York State this is, I can tell you that Wikipedia describes Delmar as a "hamlet in the town of Bethlehem, in Albany County" and that area is a suburb of the large city of Albany. All of this is well up into New York State, just west of the eastern edge of Massachusetts, and just south of the bottom of Vermont.

Sears was very active in New York state, and so were other kit house companies, including Wardway and Bennett. I've blogged previously about a Sears Kilbourne and a Wardway Devonshire, also in Delmar (actually, in Elsmere, apparently), and those two are just shy of two miles from this house. Researcher Andrew Mutch has found about eight more Sears models in the Delmar area, including this Lewiston,  this Argyle, this old No. 114 (later called the Concord), this probable Lynnhaven, this Whitehall, this very nice Winona, and, finally, this Sears Hammond model.

I would love to know who was the original owner of this house! If you happen to be the current, or new owner, please contact me -- the original owner's name might well be listed on the blueprints that are being sold with the house.