Update!! This house is now scheduled for demolition on August 7th. Click here to read the latest!
A Sears House from Montgomery Ward?
Yes, it’s true! But the sad news is, it’s slated for immediate demolition.
Friday afternoon, I wrote a blog about the Sears Lewiston* at Bowling Green State University. Currently this old kit house (circa 1932) is home to the university’s “Pop Culture Department.”
According to an article that appeared in the Toledo Blade, Bowling Green State University has decided that the house must go. A specific date hasn’t been given, but the school wants the building gone before classes begin on August 20th.
An online petition has been created in the hopes of saving This Old House. Please sign the petition by clicking here!
And in my professional opinion, this house should be saved.
Not just because it’s an historically significant kit house, ordered out of a mail-order catalog and shipped in 12,000 pieces to the Bowling Green Train Depot and assembled by an old family of Bowling Green, using only a 75-page instruction book and 14 pages of blue prints, and not just because it’s a piece of irreplaceable American and a piece of our heritage and culture… (And yet, those should be enough reasons to save this house…)
This little Neo-Tudor in Bowling Green should be saved for two additional (and uniquely compelling) reasons.
1) The personal story about how this house came to be: This kit house was purchased from Montgomery Ward in late 1931 or very early 1932. The home’s buyer was Virgil Taylor, the son of Jasper and Mae Taylor. Jasper Taylor was the County Treasurer.
Virgil built this kit home on a lot that he’d been gifted by his parents. Imagine, hauling 12,000 pieces of house from the train depot in Bowling Green to the building lot. That, in and of itself, was a monumental task.
Virgil also obtained a mortgage from Montgomery Ward, so this means that the kit house had to “completed and ready for occupancy in four months.”
Virgil had to hustle.
In 1936, the Great Depression must have hit Virgil hard. He lost the house to foreclosure, and it went back to Montgomery Ward. For a short time, Montgomery Ward rented out the little house and then it was sold to the college in the late 1930s.
This is an amazing story because it’s an encapsulation of life during the the early 1930s. Dad wants to help son get a start in life. Dad gives son a free lot. Son buys a kit home, and working nights and weekends, he builds the house. As he builds it (probably working side-by-side with Dad), both men think about the security that “a home of his own” will give to young Virgil.
As he painstakingly drives in each of the many nails in this kit (about 750 pounds of nails), he thinks about growing old in this house, and maybe someday bringing a wife and child into his “home.” And then the Great Depression hits and Virgil loses everything, including his beloved home and the lot his parents gave him. And the happy memories of working with Dad. And the joy of building something with his own hands. And all the faith and hopeful expectation about his future, secure in a home of his own.
All of it gone, washed away by the economic tsunami of the 1930s.
Losing a house is hard. Losing a home that you built with your own two hands must be excruciating.
Now that’s a compelling story, but there’s yet another reason that this house has captured my fancy.
2) Virgil’s house is a Sears kit home (The Lewiston*) and yet it was ordered from Montgomery Ward.
Yeah, you read that right.
This is not unheard of, but it is pretty darn unusual. Apparently, Virgil fell in love with the Sears Lewiston and yet – for reasons we haven’t discovered yet – had an allegiance or connection to Montgomery Ward. Virgil apparently sent a photo of the house to Wards and asked them to build him this Sears House.
When I first heard that this was a Montgomery Ward house, I was a tiny bit incredulous. Dale Wolicki and I co-authored a book (“Mail-Order Homes of Montgomery Ward”), and I can tell you, they never offered a kit home that looked anything like the Lewiston.
And then Raymond I. Schuck sent me some photos (shown below). This house was ordered from Montgomery Ward. But it’s not a Ward’s house.
Our priority is saving this house, so please – before you gaze upon the awesome photos below – take a moment and sign this online petition. Please forward this link to every old house lover you know and ask them to do the same. Post the link on your Facebook page. Tweet this page. Spread the word.
* The persistent asterisk is because I’m not sure how to label this house. It’s a Sears Lewiston, ordered from Montgomery Ward.
This is the Sears Lewiston (ordered from Wards) that is slated for demolition at Bowling Green State University (Toledo). Photo is reprinted courtesy of The Blade, Toledo, Ohio.
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The Sears Lewiston, as seen in the 1930 catalog.
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The floorplan for the Sears Lewiston
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Lumber inside this "Sears Lewiston" states that the house was ordered from Montgomery Ward & Co., Davenport, Iowa. Unlike Sears, Montgomery Ward did not have a "Modern Homes Department." All orders for Wardway Homes were turned over to Gordon Van Tine (yet another kit home company) for fulfillment. Photo is copyright 2012 Raymond I. Schuck and can not be used or reproduced without written permission.
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Another piece of lumber shows that the house was shipped to the train depot at Bowling Green, Ohio. The address (128 No. Church Street) was Virgil's home at the time. He lived with his parents prior to building this house. The number (29722) is probably a model number, but it could be an order number. Next to the number is Virgil's name! "V. H. Taylor." Photo is copyright 2012 Raymond I. Schuck and can not be used or reproduced without written permission.
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Ah, but it gets even better. Bowling Green is home to several kit homes, including the Sears "Willard" shown in this promotional advertisement from 1928.
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And here is the Willard in Bowling Green! What a beauty! How many Sears Homes are in Bowling Green? Several. Photo is copyright 2012 Dale Wolicki and can not be used or reproduced without written permission.
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Tomorrow, I’ll write a blog showcasing a few of the kit homes that Dale found in Bowling Green.
To read one of the many reasons that I think this house should be saved, click here.
Very tragic, Virgil lost his dream house. He was courting his future wife Virginia at this time.
He lived at home with mom and dad and slaved away in his spare time building this magnificent home all while earning a small wage as the advertising manager for the Sentinel Tribune.
What became of that job? Is that what sent Virgil and his new bride Virginia in to foreclosure? The American dream is shattered for these young newlyweds.
How devastating that must have been.
And now, the university wants to demolish this dream, forever. Now it will only be a memory and stories will be told about the magnificent house that Virgil built for his new wife on the corner of College and Wooster.
It seems to me that the university would save this house at all costs for future generations. This house should be preserved and a historical plaque erected outside telling the story of where it came from. Once this house is gone there will never be another. And this house has a very interesting story to boot! Don’t do something you might regret in 10 years Bowling Green!
We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
What an interesting and intriguing story!
Reading on Facebook (search/friend BGSU Popc House), it appears that the BGSU administration seems ‘immobile’ on the idea of not having an empty lot. So can it be moved?
Have you heard of other kit homes being re-located? Bowling Green has wide streets and the University owns a lot of land in zip code 43403, perhaps this is plan B?
Mac, it would be very doable to move this house. Kit homes get moved a whole lot, probably because 1) people recognize the value of preserving these homes, and 2) they’re not massive homes, making relocation more achievable and 3) the quality of wood in these homes really is something we will never see again in this country.
The wood in a early 20th Century kit home is first-growth lumber from virgin forests, harvested from trees in dense forests that grew very slowly, competing for air and light and nutrients.
Really and truly, we will never see wood like this again.
But that’s just Reason #284 to save this house.
PS. I’ve just send a friend request to the “Save the Pop Culture House” group on Facebook. You might also want to join OUR group (Sears Homes), as there’s been in-depth discussion on the research.
Rachel Shoemaker is the one who’s doing the lion’s share on this, and is doing a first-class job, and her comments and info can be found at our group.
Save this house!