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Kit Home History
History of Kit HomesAfter World War I, between 1900 and 1917, middle class society was expanding and, for the first time, beginning to buy more homes. To meet growth demand, companies started expanding in the residential building industry. Kit houses purchased through mail-order became popular in the 1910s, allowing new homeowners to be a part of the design and building process and giving the option of buying the home in stages, "a necessity since long-term mortgages were not available at this time" (University of Toledo). The popularity of kit houses lasted into the 1950s. National Kit Home Companies included:
Aladdin Homes of Bay City, Michigan
Lewis Homes/Liberty Homes of Bay City, Michigan
Sterling Homes/International Mill and Timber, Bay City, Michigan
Sears Roebuck, Chicago, Illinois
Montgomery Wards, Chicago, Illinois
Harris Brothers, Chicago, Illinois
Gordon Van-Tine, Davenport, Iowa
In 1895, Sears Roebuck, a mass-merchandising, mail-order company, started to offer their customers building supplies and house plans through their catalogues. "It was an unprofitable venture for them, and they almost shut it down. But in 1916, a new department manager took over, [and] came up with the idea of kit homes…" which included the entire house in pieces that were numbered, an instruction manual, paint and nails (Downers Grove). Between 1908 and 1940, Sears introduced to their customers a ‘Modern Homes’ division within their catalogue where building plans, materials and kit houses were advertised. The first catalogue produced in 1908 by Sears contained 22 house plans; by the twenties the "catalogue contained over one hundred house models and numerous summer cottages and garages in a variety of the most popular styles" (Arts & Crafts Society, b). The common bungalow was the most popular model of home sold because "they were cheap to build, small and simple in design, and functional for first-time buyers…" (University of Toledo). "This compact, affordable house began as a vacation style home in the 1880s but grew into a major housing type in cities and suburbs in the years before World War I. Bungalows came in a wide variety of types and styles that included Arts & Crafts, Spanish, Colonial and English Tudor" (Arts & Crafts Society, b).
Sears stopped selling kit homes in the 1940’s because of financial reasons. The company had loaned out tens of millions of dollars to their customers, but after the Stock Market Crash of 1929, many people lost their jobs and lifetime savings and were not able to make their monthly payments. "Even if Sears repossessed the homes, there were very few families who could afford to buy them" (Downers Grove).
"Because Sears didn’t want to be known as the big bad corporation that took everybody’s homes from them, they absorbed most of the losses. In 1934…, Sears liquidated over $11 million in mortgages….Because of this, Sears stopped financing the purchase of their kit homes, and also stopped lending money for any part of their construction" (Downers Grove).
Even though some people might have been able to afford a new house, they usually were not able to secure a bank loan, since many banks were crippled by the Crash, or the customer was denied the opportunity to purchase a complete package, which included a loan with the kit home and materials. "Although sales rebounded a little bit in 1935, customers were resistant to Sears’ policy of selling the kits only, and letting buyers arrange their own financing" (Downers Grove). In 1940, Sears discontinued their kit homes and sold their lumber mills.
"Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan was…begun in 1906 by two brothers, Otto and William Sovereign" (Currie, b). The brothers got their idea of producing kit houses from a successful Bay City company that sold pre-fabricated boats by mail. William Sovereign, a lawyer, "reasoned that if the parts of a boat could be machined, ready-to-ship and nailed together by an amateur, houses could be sold the same way. Sovereign enlisted the help of his brother, Otto, who worked in advertising. Although they weren’t designers, the Sovereigns were comfortable as entrepreneurs. Their father made his money in Michigan’s booming lumber business" (Roth).
"Taking over their mother’s kitchen as a design studio, the brothers sketched out a simple wooden building that could be put to a variety of uses. They contracted with a local sawmill to produce this precut building, printed a two-page catalog, and were in business. As with any small business, money was tight….Otto realized that if he got an advertisement to a newspaper right on its deadline, the paper had no time to do a credit check and, rather than lose the business, would run the ad anyway. The Sovereigns took advantage of that insight to place a small, one-time ad in the Saturday Evening Post. A week later they heard from their first customer—a man from Detroit who needed to build three houses and three barns for his family on their new land in Idaho. The Sovereign brothers had both order and payment by the end of the day, and the Aladdin home was on its way" (Roth).
Aladdin’s first homes were very small and usually purchased and built for vacation purposes; they became known as summer cottages. As their catalogue grew, they always incorporated into the closing pages a list of summer cottages (until 1948). Along with summer cottages appeared other "side line" structures that included garages, farmers barns, dairy barns, hog houses, sheep folds, poultry houses, milk houses and granaries.
Aladdin was the first company to offer "kit" houses. The material in each kit house was pre-cut and numbered. Aladdin’s homes became very popular and, between 1910 and 1940, their catalogue grew to a point of offering over 450 different models of homes. Styles usually included Bungalow, Craftsman and Georgian Colonial Revival which reflected consumer preferences of that time.
Aladdin advertised their catalogues in various magazines and local and national newspapers. Most of the houses within the catalogue were two to three bedroom homes, allowed alterations or additions to be made, and came with construction instructions. These homes appealed to the consumer because of their self-construction feature, which reduced cost and increased customer participation.
Most communication between Aladdin and its customers was done through the mail via letters and the order form and price list included within each catalogue. Because price was a major issue, care was taken to specifically calculate the quantities of lumber and hardware required for construction. Options in design were given which permitted the customer "to design their own home to their specifications" (Currie, a).
"Customers often made suggestion of the house design they actually wanted and the Aladdin architects often adapted pre-existing designs to suit customers’ needs, thus providing a true ‘custom built’ pre-manufactured home….Aladdin promised that their construction standards met every building code in America and that ‘nothing was left to chance.’ The blueprints and construction drawings were easy and simple to follow. The manual gave direct instruction on how to erect an Aladdin home, and a check list covered all the materials shipped" (Currie, a).
Included within each manual were instructions on building the foundation or basement of the house even though materials for the foundation were not included in the purchase. Aladdin boasted that their homes could be built in a day, but were usually constructed in a week to three weeks.
"Delivery for many years had been from the local train stations, but by the 1960s, the Aladdin Company was delivering houses with trucks to the plot of land where the foundations had been laid. The cost of freight shipping varied regionally but Aladdin promised that most homes would be delivered within five to eight days of receiving the catalog order. On many of the smaller models in the 1949 catalog Aladdin promised to pay the freight…" (Currie, a).
In 1914, Aladdin started publishing "Homecraft Market Place" catalogue which included home furnishing products. This catalog only lasted until 1918. Later, in 1949, Aladdin offered furnishings, such as kitchen cabinets, oak flooring and such, through the mail. The catalogues published by Aladdin "provide a record of the century’s vernacular architecture—the styles that dominated farming communities and factory towns" (Roth).
"Aladdin’s success was due largely to their innovative marketing techniques. To encourage buyers who were hesitant about committing large sums of money to a catalog company for a home, the company focused on quality, offering the ‘Aladdin Famous Dollar a Knot Garanty.’ Every knot found in the wood by the purchaser could be refunded for $1. The company also promoted no waste in production, expert designers, the honesty and integrity of company owners, and endorsements from the likes of Saturday Evening Post as proof of their quality product. Advertisements also sold the dream of home ownership. Like all catalog home companies, Aladdin succeeded by taking high-style homes to the people" (University of Toledo).
Aladdin tried making money through other avenues of building even though they were most profitable selling their pre-cut homes. One avenue was selling dwellings to industries. "There had long been a market for industry-owned homes in the ‘company towns’ that were frequently associated with remote operations that extracted natural resources…" (Currie, c). The Aladdin 1920 catalogue presented "cities" to these manufacturers for purchase. The factory cities, designed by Aladdin, came complete with schools, churches, firehouses, water and sewage systems, sidewalks and roads. Included within each city plan were water treatment plants, lighting systems, and landscape plans. The city plans proved to be unsuccessful and Aladdin quickly moved on to providing just drawings for individual structures. The industrial catalogue did not last very long; in 1921, Aladdin changed their focus to their annual homes catalogue.
Due to a demand for worker housing, Aladdin was somewhat successful in the industrial market during World War I and II with their individual structures. They were able to sell their product to the military because their homes were easy to assemble and low in cost. When World War II started, Aladdin…
"again turned to selling housing for the military. A typical product, touted in a four page advertising flyer published in red, white, and blue, was Aladdin’s ‘fully demountable’ five man huts. The flyer promised that five enlisted men could erect the structure in 75 minutes and take it down in 32 minutes. Aladdin claimed it could manufacture one hundred of these huts a day. As early as 1942 Aladdin had $1.8 million in government contracts, with an additional $820,000 worth of military work in 1943" (Currie, c).
After the war was ended, Aladdin stopped manufacturing barracks, mess halls, and the like.
"Perhaps the most storied of the many group sales made by Aladdin during the war came from the Austin Motor Company in Birmingham, England. In November, 1916 Austin purchased two hundred modified ‘Chester’ houses to be shipped to England. Sent on the SS Headley, the houses were lost when the ship was sunk by a German submarine. In March 1917 all two hundred homes had been erected. These homes still stand in Birmingham, an isolated island of midwestern American architecture dropped into the British countryside. The site narrowly survived German bombs during World War II and today has been placed on the British Historic Register" (Currie, c).
Aladdin manufactured homes until 1981, and had sold more than 50,000 homes during the 77 years it was in business.
"Along with bigger firms [like] Sears, Aladdin changed the architectural landscape of twentieth-century American architecture. With their simple styles, they represented the majority of American houses built in the first half of the twentieth century and the majority of those lived in throughout the century" (Roth).