Sears House Hunters meet up – Day 2

This summer is flying by!  It seems like forever ago we had our Sears House Hunters meet up in Cleveland, but in fact, it’s only been a few weeks.

I better get some details down in here, since it’s like my very own Sears House Hunting journal, before I forget what all we saw!

It would take way too long to list all the houses we drove by on Saturday of our weekend.  I tried to keep count, but may have missed a few, in our excitement over nice homes, and new finds.   In all, we passed by about 75 Sears Houses!  WOW!

We started the day out meeting up in Independence, Ohio.  That’s a bit south of Cleveland, but still in Cuyahoga County, which was to be our focus for the day.  We hopped in Judith’s rental car, a nice spacious  Jeep Grand Cherokee, and with Andrew as navigator, headed out.  Marie was in the front with Judith, so she could use her eagle eye to spot new houses.  (And she did)  I was in the back, taking notes.

Since I wasn’t driving, and wasn’t navigating, I couldn’t actually tell you our exact path, but I know we drove some streets in Garfield Heights, Maple Heights, Bedford, Warrensville Heights, Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights, South Euclid, Lyndurst, and Mayfield Heights.  Then…..we wandered outside of Cuyahoga County into Lake County, where we toured a bit of Wickliffe and Willoughby.  Not necessarily in that order, but pretty close, I think.

 

Of course, we didn’t stop at all the houses along our way, just ones that were especially nice, or models one of us hadn’t seen before in real life….. or just because.

Here’s a sampling of some of the houses we did actually stop the car to see from the sidewalk, which is definitely a better view than from the car, like you would get on Google Maps.  Well….. all our views were better that Google Maps, because we were going slower, and did pull to the curb if there was traffic.

Sears Glendale, 10212 Plymouth Ave., Garfield Heights OH

 

The Sears Glendale was offered as early as 1911,  as the No. 148.  Around 1916, Sears changed their models from numbers to names.  The Glendale model in Garfield Heights was built around 1919, according to tax information.  It has an added dormer and a side door.  I have seen this change on other Glendale models in the Cincinnati area.  The side door works well with the floor plan, because that is where the basement stairs are.  This home still has the original leaded glass window panes shown in the catalog illustration.

 

One of the houses on my “must see” list for Cuyahoga County was a home, not from Sears, but from Montgomery Ward.

Wardway Coventry, 10608 Grace Ave., Garfield Heights Ohio

This catalog page was available on Google images.

In Bedford, we stopped by this Sears Lakecrest model.  It’s always been a bit of a puzzle as to why this house didn’t appear in the Sears catalogs until 1931.  It’s a very common bungalow design and by 1931, those were a bit out of style.   We’re sure this is a “real deal” Sears House because it is documented with a mortgage record.

Sears Lakecrest, 81 Tudor Ave., Bedford Ohio

Up the road a bit in Warrensville Heights, we saw this wonderful example of a Sears Kilbourne.  We stopped for this one because Judith had never seen one “for real”.

Sears Kilbourne, 20009 Gladstone Rd, Warrensville Heights, Ohio   (Photo by Judith Chabot)

In Cleveland Heights, we got an invite to see the INSIDE of a Sears Ashmore.  That story would be a whole separate blog post.  Good thing Judith already took care of that!

Sears Ashmore in Cleveland Heights

After lunch we headed for Lyndhurst, where there was another model on my “need to see” list, a Sears Gateshead.

Sears Gateshead, 5240 Edenhurst Rd., Lyndhurst Ohio

 

The Gateshead is considered a rare model.  To date, only 4 of them have been located, and 2 of them are in Cuyahoga County!

The catalog image is available at Antique Home

Sears Gateshead catalog image

Another model we don’t see very often is the Sears Hammond.  Lyndurst has two!  One we already had on our list from deed research.  The second one, I spotted on our drive around the area.

Sears Hammond, 5280 Spencer Rd., Lyndhurst Ohio. Built reversed from the catalog image

 

Up the road in Wickcliffe,  we saw spied this Sears Westly.

Sears Westly, 1805 Maple St., Wickliffe Ohio

 

And in Willoughby, another.  The Westly was a very popular model.

Sears Westly, 4765 Waldamere Ave., Willoughby Ohio

And a Sears Windsor, getting a new roof.

Sears Windsor, 37504 2nd St., Willoughby Ohio

I could go on and on, but like I said earlier, no way to share them all!  Cuyahoga and Lake County delivered what we set out for.  A nice day out seeing houses, great weather, and some of our group got to meet each other “for real” at last.

Our weekend didn’t end here.  Marie and I took a different route home on Sunday, and had more great finds.  I will share some of those in my next post, which I hope, will be sooner rather than later.

Thanks for following along.