This weekend, the hubby and I traveled to Stanley, Virginia (in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley) and saw this gorgeous Sears Milton. It’s one of Sears finest homes, and other than this Milton in the Virginia mountains, I’ve never ever seen another Milton - anywhere or anytime.

It’s a real beauty. And the good news is, it’s a Bed and Breakfast. Hopefully this summer I’ll have a chance to travel back to Stanley and spend a night or two inside the Sears Milton on West Main Street.

For more information on the Milton House Inn, click here.

According to local lore, the sextant’s home at the Greenlawn Cemetery (in Newport News, Virginia) is a Sears Home. As is so typical with these “legends,” no one knows which model of Sears Home, only that it came from the Sears Roebuck catalog in the early 1900s. (Sears offered 370 models of their kit homes.)

Recently, I went out to Greenlawn Cemetery to see if the Sextant’s home was indeed a Sears Home. More than 80% of the time, these “stories” about Sears Homes turn out to be erroneous. Most of the time, people do indeed have a kit home, but it’s a kit home from a different company. In addition to Sears, there were five other companies that sold kit homes on a national level (such as Montgomery Ward, Sterling, Lewis Manufacturing, Gordon Van Tine and more).

While I was out at Greenlawn, I took some pictures of the house and walked around and studied it a bit. I’d still like to get into the house to confirm this, but as of today, I’m 60% certain this is a Sears House, more specifically, the Sears Berkeley. However, before I declare this an official, authenticated Sears Home, I’d need to see the home’s interior.

The house at Greenlawn is not a spot-on match to the catalog image. The windows are significantly different, as is the front porch (which has been enclosed).

The Berkeley, as shown in the 1936 catalog

The Berkeley at Greenlawn Cemetery

Front yard of The Berkeley. It's a nice quiet neighborhood.

Whilst driving around the state of Illinois, I visited Metropolis way down in the southern  most part of the state. I found a handful of Sears Homes, and I also found Superman.

I sent my brother an email and shared the photo I took of Superman (see below). My brother wrote back and said, “Smallville, Illinois? Ask to see Superman’s birth certificate. And while you’re there, ask about Obama’s too. More probable that we’ll see Superman’s first.”

Superman stands proud and tall in Metropolis

Recently, I traveled to southern Illinois to re-visit the site of the old Sears Mill.

In late 1911, Sears spent about $1 million to build a state-of-the-art mill just outside of Cairo, Illinois. The mill was actually located in a tiny burg called Urbandale. The Sears Mill was an impressive operation, covering 40 acres and employing about 80 full-time workers. About 20 acres were “under roof.” In other words, the site had 20 acres of buildings.

That’s a lot of buildings.

Each day, the railroad cars brought enormous quantities of yellow pine and cypress into the mill, right out of the virgin forests in Louisiana and Mississippi. Each day, those workers turned those logs into 10-12 kit homes. You read that right:  Hard-working men, using powerful saws and planers and other massive machines, carved those trees into kit homes. Kit homes with 30,000 pieces. That’s a lot of lumber.

In 2003, when doing research for my book, “The Houses That Sears Built,” I traveled to the site of the old mill. Not much to see there, but a couple little Sears Homes and a lot of woods and a couple bean fields.

Fast forward seven years to 2010.

Now I’m writing a new book about Sears Homes, and I decided it was time to dig a little deeper.

This time around, I contacted Richard Kearney, a local historian, long-time Cairo resident and all-around Smart Cookie and good man.

I asked him if he might have time to spend a day with me, helping me navigate the back roads of southern Illinois. To my delight, he readily agreed. Our day together could not have been any more delightful. With Richard’s fantastic knowledge of the area, I learned so much more about the old Sears Mill and its connection to local history.

One small example:  Soon after entering Urbandale, we turned onto “Sears Road” (the site of the old mill), and Richard spoke up and said, “You know, this used to be known as ‘Sears Roebuck Road.’”

I replied, “You’re kidding!”

He said, “It’s true. This road went all the way through, and when the Interstate came through, it cut the road right in half, creating two dead end streets on either side of I-57.”

This is the kind of quirky history that I just adore. I was enthralled.

“On the other side of the interstate,” Richard said, “you’ll find the other half of this road. It’s now called “Roebuck Road.”

Now I’ve been writing about Sears Homes for many years and I’ve been to Cairo many times and I’ve spent many hours learning more about Sears and Cairo and the mill, but I’d never heard any of this.

I asked Richard to show me where Roebuck Road was. He gladly obliged.

And there it was - Roebuck Road. And there was yet another bonus! Behind the Roebuck Road sign was a perfect little Sears house. It was a Sears Wexford.

A Sears House on Roebuck Road. Or maybe it’s a Roebuck house on Roebuck Road?

Either way, Garmin apparently never got the memo that Sears Roebuck Road had been sliced into two pieces.

Sears Road - in Urbandale

Note the little Sears Wexford in the background!

Someone needs to tell Garmin that Sears and Roebuck are now divorced - thanks to the Interstate!

Richard - thank you so much -  for sharing your knowledge and being such a good sport and giving up an entire day of your life to help me find my way around the southern-most tip of Illinois. You’re a real trooper and a treasure-trove of knowlege!

Part of the fun of traveling to 23 states and giving 200 talks on Sears Homes is seeing all kinds of wacky and wild stuff. One Sunday morning in 2003, as my host was driving me back to the airport (to return home to the Midwest), I saw this Sears Madelia (see second photo below). It was in Zanesville, OH (or a nearby town) and we were actually several blocks beyond this building when I told my host, “Please turn around. I think I saw something.”

He reminded me that we didn’t have much time and I told him I understood and this wouldn’t take but a second. And there - in all its painful glory - was this badly butchered Sears house. It’s actually a Sears Madelia and it was not that popular a model for Sears. (Sears sold 370 designs of kit homes from 1908 - 1940.)

The first picture (first image) is a happy, healthy Madelia in Wood River, Illinois on 9th Street. There are 24 Sears Homes in a row, a remnant from the days of Standard Oil’s purchase of $1 million worth of Sears Homes for their refinery workers. The second picture I’ve titled,

A Madelia trapped in a tavern’s body.

A happy little Sears Madelia in Wood River, IL

And here’s the Madelia trapped in a tavern’s body.

A Madelia trapped in a tavern's body

This next house is a Sears Crescent in Norfolk, Virginia. It’s a happy little Crescent with good self-esteem.

A happy Sears Crescent

And this next picture was taken by Rebecca Hunter, a kit-home expert in Elgin, Illinois.

An unhappy Sears Crescent in Illinois

Here's a Sears Westly, as it appeared in the 1919 Sears catalog

Unhappy Sears House in the Midwest. Too much plastic in one place.