Last week, I published a blog about a beautiful Aladdin Shadowlawn I found in Concord, NC. At the time, I couldn’t find the address. My addresses are stored in notebooks, and they’re not in any particular order. Retrieving an address from a trip made long ago can be pretty challenging.
However, once the hoopla of Christmas had settled a bit in the Thornton Home, I went looking for that address in Concord. And I found it! This Aladdin Shadowlawn is on Grove Street.
BTW, when I was in Concord, I was on my way to another North Carolina city, so I didn’t do a “proper” and extensive survey of Concord, but I do remember finding some other Aladdin kit homes there, including, an Aladdin Pomona, and an Aladdin Sheffield, and this Aladdin Shadowlawn (see below).
It’s not surprising that this part of North Carolina is so loaded with kit homes, because Aladdin had a major mill in Wilmington, NC. In fact, Roanoke Rapids has one of the largest collections (and most impressive collections) of Aladdins in the country! It’s worth the trip, I promise!
Aladdin was one of six national mail-order companies that sold entire kit homes through their catalogs. The houses typically arrived by train in 12,000 pieces and came with a 75-page instruction book that told the homeowner how all those pieces and parts went together. Today, there are about 75,000 Aladdin kit homes in the country (compared with about 70,000 Sears Homes in the country).
While Sears is a more well-known name in the kit home business, Aladdin actually was around a lot longer. Sears started in 1908; Aladdin started in 1906!
In 1940, Sears called it quits, and closed their Modern Homes department. Aladdin continued to sell kit homes until 1981.
More than 90% of the people living in these historically significant homes didn’t realize what they had until I knocked on their door and told them! Aladdin Kit Homes were sold from 1906-1981. (Sears, by comparison, was out of business by 1940.)
To learn more about identifying kit homes, click here.
To learn about the Aladdin Homes in Rocky Mount, click here.
To learn more about the massive collection of Aladdin kit homes in Roanoke Rapids, click here.
The Aladdin Shadowlawn was a big, beautiful kit home, and there's a perfect Shadowlawn in Concord, NC. Image is from the 1919 catalog.
And here it is, a perfect Shadowlawn in Concord, but what is the address?
Somewhere in Concord, I think I saw a Plaza, too.
And an Aladdin Pomona.
In Roanoke Rapids, NC, you'll find this *perfect* Aladdin Pomona and the best part - it really is ON the railroad tracks! As I recall, there is a Pomona in Concord.
Aladdin offered some pretty fancy houses, too, such as this Aladdin Villa.
If you love kit homes, you have to visit Roanoke Rapids. It was a town built by Aladdin, and it was a wide variety of Aladdin kit homes, including this Aladdin Villa (Aladdin's biggest kit home).
Aladdin was a kit home company based in Bay City that sold more than 75,000 kit homes during their 75 years in the kit home business.
Aladdin was a large, impressive company and here in the Southeast, most of the kit homes that I've found are from Aladdin,
Aladdin also sold entire cities of their kit homes, and one sterling example is Roanoke Rapids, NC. In that small town, we've found more than 60 Aladdin Kit Homes, including some of Aladdin's biggest and fanciest homes.
Aladdin Homes were made with quality materials - first growth lumber out of virgin forests - the likes of which we will never again see in this country.
My favorite graphic from the 1914 Aladdin catalog.
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To learn more about the massive collection of Aladdin kit homes in Roanoke Rapids, click here.
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I will definitely go look for you, Rose! It is raining again today but soon. I know where Grove St. is and will get some better shots of this one.