For years, I’ve received phone calls and emails from people wanting to tell me that The Pungo Grill is a Sears Home. Recently, I drove out to this locally owned restaurant in Pungo (on the southern edge of Virginia Beach) to have a look for myself.

Although it’s difficult to tell from this landscape-laden photo (see below), The Pungo Grill is not a Sears Home. About 80% of the time, people who think they have a Sears Home are wrong. Most often, these folks DO have a kit home, but it’s a kit home from another company – not Sears. In addition to Sears, there were six other companies selling kit homes through mail order. They were Aladdin, Montgomery Ward,  Lewis Manufacturing, Gordon Van Tine, Sterling Homes and Harris Brothers (a smaller company based in Chicago).

For obvious reasons, Sears was the most well-known in the kit house business.

And while The Pungo Grill is not a Sears Home, it is a kit home from another company. It’s a lovely example of an Aladdin Plaza.

To see pretty pictures of other kit homes in Hampton Roads, click here.

To buy Rose’s book, click here.

Aladdin Plaza as shown in 1919 Aladdin catalog

The Pungo Grill in Pungo. Note the distinctive eave brackets. The porch on this house has been enclosed, but it's still a fine-looking Aladdin Plaza!

Aladdin Plaza in Bedford, Virginia

One of my all-time favorite Aladdin Plazas is in Norfolk, Virginia, about three miles from my home in Colonial Place.

Floor plan

Aladdin Plaza

To read more about the Sears Homes among us, click here.

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