Catarina Bannier

Oh, once more I feel so flattered! The mighty Rose Thornton, national authority on the history and identification of the mail-order homes of the early 20th century and author of books such as "Finding The Houses That Sears Built,"kind of featured me on her blog yesterday. Well, actually, not me, but some of the catalog houses I identified in my favorite DC neighborhoods.

I have often written about the stories behind the houses I sold or came across, from discovering they had a famous first owner to the long-forgotten murder in the basement. DC certainly has a lot of history of any kind. Last year, however, I started paying more attention to a particular group of homes with history: kit homes.

Most of the close-in DC suburbs and uptown neighborhoods go back to the 1910s and 1920s, with the simultaneous expansion of government and the streetcar network. That's when most of the Sears, Lewis and Standard Co. pre-cut homes were built as well. DC had sales offices from the largest manufacturers, and there are a lot of these houses still out here. Often, the owners have no idea their house was once delivered by rail in thousands of pieces. In many cases, local builders bought nice lots and then put a catalog homes together as a spec house, taking all the credit for themselves!

In any case, one reason my business partner, Marcie, and I are so interested in those homes is that they tend to come on the market every so often, making it easier to "inspect" them for traces of the past and point them out to the fan community. Yesterday, for instance, I introduced the "Uriel" on my local blog, DC House Cat,--a fun little Sears charmer that's currently for sale in nearby Silver Spring, MD.

Occasionally I email the link to such a post to the listing agent. Turns out that more often than not, the agent is just as surprised as the owner. We owe it to Rose and a few other kit house historians that this chapter of American residential history is not forgotten.

Therefore, if you have any kit house pictures to share, send them to Rose Thornton. (And if the houses are in the DC area, send them my way as well!)

The pictures show a 1920s Sears "Fullerton" I found in Shepherd Park, DC as well as the same model depicted in the 1922 Sears catalog. The Shepherd Park house has, at least from the outside, remained completely intact, with the original siding. The only "customization" --Sears allowed for variation orders--is the position of the chimney which was put in the "piano" space rather than the center of the house.

As we skipped the Kit House of the Week feature last week, I'm making up for it by presenting you with two historic mail-order homes for this weekend. Both are on the market for sale, and both will be open this weekend.

Number one is a somewhat modified but still recognizable Sears "Americus" on Morrison Street in the historic part of Chevy Chase, DC. While unfortunately much of the original woodwork on the exterior has fallen victim to "modernization" efforts, presumably during the 1980s, there's a lot of it left inside. (Note the crude little wooden rectangles at the junction of baseboard and stair trim--this was a peculiar Sears feature to make this connection less awkward for the amateur home builder.)

Preceding the current sellers' ownership, there were two additions made to the original house: a smaller one on the left added extra space (and a fireplace) to the living room, as well as a full bath behind it. The other addition is in the back. It's a spacious family room with a vaulted ceiling that was conceived as a music room by previous owners. (Dear colleague and fellow Rainer, Pat Kennedy, who is a musician, fondly remembers the amazing acoustics from house concerts at this place in the 1990s.)

Check out the picture of the front porch corner: you can still see where the two missing members of the characteristic "Americus" triple columns used to be.

You can find the listing, courtesy of Mary McGuire/Long & Foster, here. It was just reduced from its original asking price of $939,000 to $899,950. As always, let me know if you're interested in seeing it.

House number two to follow in the next post.

(Front Photo courtesy of MRIS/L&F)

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P.S.: After digging a little more in MRIS, our local multiple list system, I found this picture from an old listing of 3500 Morrison St. In 2001, the house still had all its colums and the original porch railing!

Live at last, and we're finally throwing ourselves into the well-deserved weekend (until Sunday, that is). Come see:

The year has started strong, and we have a lot to look forward to. It seems like I haven't been as excited about real estate since I first started out more than a decade ago!

Mainly, that has to do with my new business partnership. We're truly feeding off each other. Just take this week; it's been busy and fun for Marcie and me.

For once, we're getting close to the launch of our new shared website, dchousesmarts.com, and we've loved developing and tweaking the concept.

Then, I have once more into development and grassroots neighborhood politics, this time the discussion is about the urban redevelopment of the 100-year old, huge Walter Reed Army Medical Center that closed its doors last summer. (I took the photos here earlier this week.) You can read all about it here, in my guest blog for the Washington Post.

The kit house of the week, this time a modified 1924 Sears "Americus" that's on the market in DC, will be introduced this weekend. Stay tuned!

Last but not least, we're listing the East Bethesda home of a lovely family. Open Sunday from 1-4 pm. Priced at $699,000. See you there!

Oh, what thrill it was! The one-hundred-percent, doubt-free identification that we so rarely get to see! But just wait; we will get to that later.

This week's historic kit home is actually a rare find, at least for Washington, DC (correct me, if I'm wrong--I'm always looking to make new discoveries). Once more, we located it in the Shepherd Park neighborhood in the northern tip of DC.

The bright home with its rather unusual roof line (worked-in layered arches above the windows) is a spacious Sears "Honor," was built in 1926 (model number P13071), and it's currently for rent through our company. (You can find more pictures at the listing link. I will link to a virtual tour later.)

The interior woodwork, floors and other details are pretty much intact and have been preserved nicely. Some modifications to the house appear to be original (Sears allowed for customization), such as the pantry and back porch addition off the kitchen that still features an original ice box that could be loaded from the outside. That way, a larger eat-in kitchen was created.

Likewise a possibly original modification is the configuaration of the three front bedrooms on the floor plan that have been made into two huge bedrooms (the dividing wall is now between the two windows that appear to belong to the middle bedroom).

But there have been modernizations as well: the bedroom above the kitchen for instance is now a generous master bath and walk-in closet.

Back to my thrilling moment: as the basement is still unfinished, we could go after the tell-tale signs and traces that might make it possible to truly authenticate the house.

My heart beat a lot faster when I discovered the blue grease pencil markings kit house historians always talk about! They were on different types of pre-cut lumber, behind the stairs for instance, or on some of the floor beams. The numbers all contained the sequence "13071" which was the catalog number in 1926.

Of course, there were a bunch of other Sears-typical identifiers, such as the vertical block between the baseboard and the stair trim at the bottom of the steps, that was thought to make the kit's assembly easier for the not quite so skilled do-it-yourself carpenter. But the grease pencil truly made my day!!

The property manager, Judy Meyerson, had no idea that this was a kit house. But I hope she will pass my post on to the owners who are diplomats somewhere out in the world and couldn't be asked yet.

And if you are a kit house enthusiast--here is your chance to live in one!