Last week, a friend and I traveled to Douthat State Park in Clifton Forge, VA to visit my favorite old haunt, Cabin #1. One of 38 cabins in the park, Cabin #1 is the only cabin with vertical logs. Douthat was built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps and it underwent a massive restoration in the late 1990s.

Douthat State Park is a beautiful place, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Lake Douthat offers fishing, boating and swimming. The lake is stocked with Rainbow Trout and other tasty fishies.

There are bears throughout the 4,500+ acre park, but I didn't see any. Then again, I was too much of a wuss to hike but so far on these isolated mountain paths.

One day during my stay in Douthat, I visited nearby Covington (which is not as pretty as Douthat). Covington certainly looks like it should have an abundance of kit homes. Much to my chagrin, I only found three.

One of them was The Aladdin Plaza. Aladdin, like Sears, sold kit homes through their mail-order catalogs. These houses were 12,000-piece kits and were shipped by train (1919 catalog shown).

Despite a fairly intense search (my second in three years), I found only three kit homes. The Aladdin Plaza was one of them. It was about a block away from the city park.

The other find was this Sears "Auburn," also known as model 264P176 (1914 catalog).

The Auburn was a spacious house with more than 2,500 square feet (not counting the porches). It has two parallel staircases (main staircase and servant's staircase), each with a small landing window. The many distinctive features make it easier to identify.

Upstairs, it has spacious bedrooms and a sleeping porch.

All in all, it's quite a house.

The house in Covington is a perfect match.

Put the two images side-by-side and you've got something.

And from this angle, you can see the two small stair-case landing windows. Towards the right rear, there was a double window which has been replaced. You can see the "repaired" brick. Along the second floor right-side wall, there are only two windows (at the front and rear of that long wall), which is as it should be. Also the distinctive bracketing is spot-on.

This view shows the detail on those brackets, and the porch columns.

In another section of town, high above the neighborhood that houses the Aladdin Plaza and Sears Auburn, I found the fancy homes on the curvilinear streets (and with the beautiful views). It was up there that I found a single Sears kit home, "The Lynnhaven."

All in all, I was very surprised to find only three kit homes in the entire city. This was my second visit, and between the two visits, I don't think I missed very much!

By the way, while you're in Clifton Forge, you should stop and see the train museum there. It's well worth the visit and the $8 admission supports a very worthy cause. I've been there four times, and I highly recommend it!

By the way, if anyone knows what happened to "The Merry Widow" (shown above) please let me know? I couldn't find it on this most-recent trip. It's been sitting in this spot since 1952.