Step inside. My private tour of a Sears Modern Home in Carlinville, Illinois in Sept. 2013 & May 2014.

I was fortunate to meet Mr. Robert Cook, a homeowner of a Whitehall Sears Modern home in Carlinville, Illinois, when I was on a tour of the Macoupin County Courthouse in 2013. After several phone calls, he invited me over for a private tour of his home. In May 2014, my wife went with me for the second photoshoot. I brought Mr. Cook some fresh bakery pastries on both visits.

Mr. Robert Cook and his Whitehall Sears Modern home on a corner property in Carlinville, Illinois.

Original catalog photo and floor plan.

Mr. Cook, a man in his mid-70s, purchased the home around 1993. He has painstakingly refurbished the house himself, except for the plumbing. The porch was already enclosed when he bought it. There is also an added family room in the back of the house measuring 2"" x1"" and is about 4 inches lower than the rest of the first floor, so the roof of the add-on would not block a second-floor window. The home began with a coal burner for heat and hot water but was converted to gas long ago.

Front of house.

The Addition on the Back of the House.

The unattached 2-car garage was added in the style of the Sears House.

As you can see from my photos, Mr. Cook stripped all the wood trim and doors, saving the original home's hardware. Even most of the button wall switches for the lights are original. The stained glass was added around the late 40s or early 50s, but Mr. Cook can only guess the date. The windows are hand-cut leaded glass. The two-car garage was added later. The back door was moved to accommodate the add-on family room. Upstairs are three original bedrooms, but the previous owner had built closets. And, of course, the bathroom, with the original tile still on the floor, had also been updated.

Also updated in the house is the removal of old ducting. New ducts and an air conditioner were added. Mr. Cook searched for period furniture to decorate his home as it would have been when it was a new house. With that in mind, he has yet to find a suitable dining room table and chairs.

The bathtub was originally a claw-foot tub with open plumbing.

Enclosed Front Porch

An Example of one style of stained glass windows which were accents to the fireplace.

The Standard Edition - Standard Oil of Indiana built 8 models in Carlinville, Illinois, for their coal mining employees.

Carlinville, Illinois, has the most extensive single collection of Sears kit homes in the United States. Beginning in 1917, Carlinville saw its population grow by one-third when Standard Oil of Indiana opened two new coal mines. An influx of young European immigrants coming to work the mines caused the town's population to swell from 4,000 to 6,000, creating a severe housing shortage.

Standard Oil officials found a solution to this crisis in an unlikely place; Sears and Roebuck. People could order home kits in various models through the Sears mail-order catalog for the first time. Eight different models were selected for Standard Addition, ranging in price from $3,000 to $4,000, with the company placing an order for $1 million for homes, the largest in Sears history. By the end of 1918, 156 mail-order homes had been placed within a nine-block neighborhood on the northeast side of town.

In 1926, Standard Oil executives determined they could buy coal cheaper than mining it themselves and decided to close the mines. The closure devastated the town and required years before it fully recovered. The workers moved away, primarily to other mines, and abandoned the housing to the ravages of time and the occasional party-goers from nearby Blackburn University. Standard Addition remained largely vacant until the mid-1930s when the houses were offered for sale to the public. Families could purchase one of the run-down five-room homes for $250 and a six-room model for $500. Even amid the Great Depression, comparable homes sold for $4,000, an incredible bargain for lucky buyers.

Today, 152 of the original 156 homes still stand. Four no longer exist on their original sites; three were destroyed by fire, and one was moved to the country. As the largest single repository of Sears Homes in the United States, Standard Addition has been the subject of several documentaries. It has attracted the attention of architects and nostalgia buffs from around the globe.

Copyright © 2014 Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved.