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| Sears Kilbourne, circa1925-1930 • 621 Mulberry Rd, Martinsville, Virginia |
I noticed this Sears Kilbourne in the real estate listings yesterday, and thought it was time to do a quick post, to highlight it. I Just really like the Kilbourne. I did a blog post about one in August of 2021, which you can see here... that one was in Glenshaw, Pennsylvania, and I showed one or two others in that post, as well.
This Kilbourne in Martinsville, Pennsylvania is unusual, in that it has brick porch columns... I don't recall ever having seen that before. This house is not authenticated, but it does seem to follow the layout of the Kilbourne correctly, and the placement of the windows and doors seems correct, so I believe that it is one. It is in the real estate listings as a Sears house, but that is frequently said about houses that simply are not a match for anything that Sears ever offered (sometimes, they are kit houses from other companies, but very often they are just thinking that because a house is of Craftsman design, it's a Sears house), so that is never a given.
This house would have been built between 1925 and 1930. We know this, because, though the Kilbourne was offered from 1921-1930, the catalog image beginning in 1925, shows purlins, rather than curvy brackets, supporting the large front porch gable, and that's what this house has. The Zillow listing gives the build year as 1929, and that date probably comes from the county assessor records... which may be accurate, or may be off by a few years.
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| You can see the Kilbourne in the 1925 Sears Modern Homes catalog, here |
I don't have any historical information about the original owners of this house, unfortunately. The only thing I found in my research, was that Billy and Ernestine Franklin lived here in 1952, according to a mention of the birth of their daughter, Coris Ann Franklin, on June 11 that year:
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| Birth announcement in the Roanoke Times, Sunday, January 29, 1952, page 48. |
Inside the Sears Kilbourne In Martinsville
So, let's just move on to taking a look at this very nice Sears house, in Martinsville, Virginia. These photos all come from this Trulia listing in April of 2024:
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| Sears Kilbourne floor plan, first floor, 1925 Sears Modern Homes catalog |
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| Sears Kilbourne floor plan, second floor, 1925 Sears Modern Homes catalog |
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