A trip to see Chicagoland Sears houses

I love seeing all the small variations and modifications people have made, either when they were building them or later owners.

See: d.r. Horton

But...

> Do we share our national database? We largely keep our database private, for the use of our research team, but will certainly answer questions from homeowners, historical societies, press, or the general public, about specific information we have collected.

I wonder why?

I would very much love to see a map of Sears houses in the SF Bay Area.

Here's a guess: maybe they're worried about people bothering the residents of those homes? It might be that people who talk to their researchers specifically ask them not to share their addresses, and not publishing a list is the best way to get homeowners to voluntarily talk to them.

You can click on the pictures to see the original home ads in the Sears catalog, with prices (e.g. http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/images/1908-1914/1911_011...) $1062 for the parts to a beautiful American Craftsman style bungalow ($34,394.38 adjusted for inflation)! Some assembly required :)

On a tangential note: Sears killed the mail order catalog in 1993, just as the Internet was starting to take off. They could have been Amazon. Now, even their landmark highrise, the Sears Tower, has been unceremoniously renamed Willis Tower.

I still like the idea of mail order house parts & plans though. Someone should start a startup to make and build them.