Anyone who’s ever ridden in a car with me knows that there’s an ever-present hazard: In the midst of conversation, I may go completely silent, close my eyes for a second or two, and then I utter those eleven words that all my friends dread:
“Can we turn the car around? I think I saw something.”
And my friends know that “I think I saw something” is code for, “I just saw a kit house I have never ever seen before and we have to turn this car around right now or I will be not be able to utter a coherent sentence for the next two hours because all available processing power will go to thinking about that house we just passed.”
It happened last week. Milton and I were driving on Granby Street, on our way to Mary Pretlow Public Library (in Ocean View). We were chatting away when an old house caught my attention.
In mid-sentence, I stopped talking and spun my head around to look at the house.
Politely and calmly, Milton asked, “What did you see?”
“A Stone Ridge,” I replied with great excitement. “I can’t believe it. I’ve been looking for this house for years and years, and I’ve been driving right past it all this time.”
We pulled over to the curb while Milton snapped a few quick pictures with his handy-dandy cell phone.
Later that evening, sitting in the blissfully quiet library, I closed my eyes and called up the original catalog image from the recesses of my mind, and then compared it to the house we’d seen on Granby Street. After comparing the two images, I became more confident that the house on Granby was indeed, The Stone Ridge, from Sears.
I’m starting to think Milton is my Good Luck House-Hunting Charm. Last March when we were riding in his truck, I discovered another grand Sears House, The Martha Washington, also in Norfolk!
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The Stone Ridge, from the 1921 Sears Modern Homes catalog.
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The Stone Ridge was a pretty fance house, with plenty of closet space. The house on Granby does not have the optional fireplace. I wonder if it has the optional grand piano?
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"Here is a large comfortable house that will identify its owner as a person of good taste." And what happens if you sell the house? Do you lose your classy identity and become a person of poor tastes?
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Beautiful house, and I love the river rock.
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Be still my quivering heart! Fortunately, 90 years later, it still retains its original siding, windows, fine lines and elegance. If you could peak behind that tall tree on the right corner, you'd see the small bump-out (for the bedroom). The house on Granby is a spot-on match to the Sears "Stone Ridge" with two iddy-biddy differences. The Norfolk house does not have the dormers or the fireplace chimney. It's possible that the house was built *with* those small dormers, but they may have been removed during a roofing job. Or it's possible the house was built sans dormers.
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Saturday afternoon, I ran into my friend Bill Inge at the Mary Pretlow Library. He said, "I saw you standing in the middle of Granby Street, taking pictures of that old house." After I thought about it a minute, I asked him, "How did you know it was me?" He said, "Because I realized that you were the only person I knew that'd be standing in the middle of a busy road, snapping photos of an old bungalow."
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Look at the detail in this front gable. God bless the owners for leaving the house original.
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Looks just like it did in 1921!
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The side-by-side comparison of the two images is stunning.
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And as a nice bonus, there's a Sears Argyle on the same block! (1919 catalog)
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And it's a fine-looking home, too!
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And a final thought, this fine home survived the Hurricane of 1933 which was a horrific storm. Many houses in Ocean View were destroyed by that storm. Let's see if this house will survive the vinyl siding salesman!
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To read more about the Sears Homes in Norfolk, click here.
To contact Rose, please leave a comment below!
How about that! I’m only wondering why you didn’t text me asking for me to text you the Stone Ridge image like you have done on occasion! LOL!
Ha! boy that’s a great find!!!
Oh, I miss the old Rose that would scream with glee STOP THE CAR!!!!!!
If I recall correctly it was I who told you NEVER EVER SCREAM STOP THE CAR EVER AGAIN after we almost hit a parked car in Wyoming Ohio when you saw a Preston, and it was I who told you just politely ask “could you go around the block, I think I saw something.”
The stone ridge is a cute house. It looks like it belongs on a piney mountain.
Were any built with the chimney?
I’d love to see the details at the top of the chimney brought to life.