Sears Rembrandt In Cheverly, Maryland

Authenticated Sears Rembrandt • 1925 • 6101 Forest Road, Cheverly, Maryland

Sears Rembrandt from the 1925 Sears Modern Homes catalog

Cheverly, Maryland has an authenticated Sears Rembrandt, and here it is! Researcher Andrew Mutch authenticated this house, along with the other 21 Sears houses in Cheverly, through mortgage records. Most all of these houses were bought by Robert Marshall, around 1925, as part of his plans to build the development of the new city of Cheverly (in fact, Forest Road was originally called Marshall Road). Marshall was an investor and stockbroker from Ohio, who came to the D.C. area during WWI "with the intent of creating a residential community, convenient to the city by rail and road, but retaining the beauty of its natural surroundings", according to this informative website about Cheverly, where you can read further about Marshall's development of Cheverly.

Newspapers in D.C. in 1926, show Robert Marshall's ads advertising "a City at Cheverly"... a "million dollar development" with "beautiful shaded lots":

Evening Star (Washington D.C.) July 31, 1926, page 22

Further ads give more information, pointing out that Cheverly was "carefully restricted and zoned" (read: not just anyone could live there), and touting the concrete streets and curbs, ornamental lamp posts, city water and electricity and telephone service, modern schools, and good transportation into D.C. .

From a Cheverly ad, Evening Star (Washington D.C.), July 24, 1926, page 20

So, this lovely Sears Rembrandt on Forest Road, is part of the Cheverly development of 1925. Andrew ran across this real estate listing today, and, since I'm not very familiar with this model, I decided to take a good look, and put together some photos of the interior, since we're lucky enough to have them.

First floor layout of the Sears Rembrandt, 1925 Sears Modern Homes catalog

Second floor layout of the Sears Rembrandt, 1925 Sears Modern Homes catalog

The Rembrandt was first introduced in 1924, and was offered by Sears through 1927. The 1925 catalog shows some colorful images of what the Rembrandt's rooms look like. I think that the real estate photographer may have been familiar with the catalog images, because several of the shots show us the same scenes.  Let's take a look.

From page 22 of the 1925 Sears Modern Homes catalog

That's the Sears colonial fireplace surround you see here.

The staircase has the Sears Colonial newel.

From the Sears Building Materials catalog, 1929

View from the dining room, looking into the kitchen, on the left, and the entry hallway and living room.
That bumped-out corner isn't shown in the catalog, so something must have been added on the other side... perhaps a closet? pantry? powder room?

The kitchen could probably use a little updating, but I'd say it's a bit improved over the 1925 suggestion!:

The Rembrandt's kitchen, as shown in the 1925 Sears Modern Homes catalog

The master bedroom, with requisite twin beds, à la I Love Lucy... ha!

And, here it is, in real life... those are even the same kind of doors as shown in the catalog image.

The master bedroom looking out into the hall.

That's it for the catalog shots, but I'd like to document the rooms and the outside of the house:

We see Sears Stratford design door hardware on this door.

rear view

side and rear view

Front view of the Sears Rembrandt at 6101 Forest Road, Cheverly, Maryland

In 1928, Sears made one change to the Rembrandt -- the look of the front porch-- and marketed it as the Van Jean. Other than the look of the front porch, the Sears Rembrandt is the exact twin of the Sears Van Jean. The layout and windows and size, are all exactly the same. They even used the same renderings of the interior, but labeled them as "The Van Jean Interiors".

In the 1928 Sears Modern Homes catalog: The Van Jean interior photos are the same ones used for the Rembrandt.

More Kit Houses In Cheverly

Andrew Mutch has documented a kit home by Michigan's McClure Company in Cheverly, in this blog post , and there are more, nestled in among the kit homes by their competitor, Sears. This informative website has lots of pages of information about the history of Cheverly, including this nice little Google map showing the locations of other Sears and McClure homes in the area.

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