Authenticated Sears Clyde In Colonia, New Jersey

Authenticated Sears Clyde bungalow, circa 1923 • 480 Fairview Avenue, Colonia, New Jersey

As we've mentioned before, we regularly peruse the real estate listings, looking for Sears houses for sale. This week, it was fun to run across this Sears Clyde bungalow, in Colonia, New Jersey (part of Woodbridge Township, Middlesex County), not only because it is a Sears house, but because I had previously tied this very house to a 1923 mortgage with Sears. 

Sears Clyde bungalow in the 1922 Sears Modern Homes catalog.

As you can see, this Clyde on Fairview Avenue has had the front porch enclosed, and a large addition has been added to the right side of the house, at some point. Take a look at the house from the front and from the right side:

Thanks to the real estate listing, we can see a good bit of the interior, much of which retains the original charm of the house, with original Craftsman style wood trim, and wood floors, and original wood doors from Sears.

The fireplace is on the left side of the house, so the enclosed front porch is the section that we see here to the left of the photo... the other side of the wall with the piano. 

This area is part of the original section of the house, and, on the other side of the French doors on the right-side wall of the living room, is where the added-on section is. The wood trim around the French doors looks like the original Craftsman trim we see elsewhere in the house, so they either did a good job of replicating the trim, or maybe this additional section of the house was added on at the time of construction. I believe that the master bedroom is in the added space.

I believe that this master bedroom occupies the added-on space on the right side of the house, that is entered through the French doors in the living room (so, the wall with the two windows, is the furthest right side elevation of the house).

When the Clyde was first introduced in 1920, there were two floor plans offered... one with a bathroom (#9030), and a slightly smaller plan without a bathroom (#7030):

The first two Clyde floorplans, shown in the 1922 Sears Modern Homes catalog. 
The larger floorplan, #9030, is shown on the left, and the smaller plan without a bathroom, #7030, is shown on the right.

Our house here at 480 Fairview Avenue, is the #9030 floor plan, with the right-side addition of the master bedroom (and there is a sunroom added on to the back):

Sears Clyde #9030 floor plan, 1922

The back bedroom has two windows and a closet, and is accessed through the hallway. The bathroom is fit in between the two bedrooms, and the furthest front bedroom (really in the center portion of that side of the house), has one window, and a closet. The window is the window we see in the bump out section on the left side of the house.

We can tell by the placement of these two windows, and the entry door, that this is the back bedroom.

This is the other bedroom -- that window wall is actually the bump out wall on the left side of the house.

This is the original bathroom that is in between those two bedrooms on the left side of the house, accessed through the little hall that connects the bedrooms... and, because it's 2023 and HGTV exists, and for no other good reason, a sliding barn door was added to replace the normal door... in my opinion, a completely unnecessary change, since this doesn't add any extra space to the bathroom, and a closed bathroom door would have allowed the exact same amount of space in the hallway (as well as a more cohesive design). 

This is the original layout of fixtures that is shown in the original floor plan offered for the Clyde, and I really like the addition of the decorative cement floor tiles, which are also used in the cubby holes in the shower... a nice design touch, I think:

Here's a closer view of the dining room, allowing us to really see the beautiful wood floors. To the left, is the entry to that little hallway between the bedrooms and the bathroom, and the kitchen is entered through the back wall of the dining room:

Original dining room space.

The kitchen is in the original space, and though these are not the original kitchen cabinets, let's take a look, anyway... after all, who doesn't like a nice white kitchen with subway tiles and vintage touches and nice stainless steel appliances? I like it... including the little Bon Appétit sign on the wall:

Definitely not the original flooring, but at least it's not that grey colored wood grain flooring we see so often in newly modernized homes. Back at the back of the kitchen, you see the original back door space, leading into an added-on sun room in the back of the house:

Here's that sunroom that is accessed through the kitchen.

That extra, added sun room adds a nice amount of space, and it opens out to a little bit of back deck. 

The basement of the house is also nicely finished off, and the French teacher in me delights in seeing the little Eiffel Tower (I think that's the same topiary wrought iron Eiffel Tower, that I have in my classroom, in fact).

The back yard wasn't provided by Sears, but it's attractive, and that little garage probably was bought from Sears, actually.

Who Lived Here?

Originally, this house was owned by Asa V. Wilder, but he sold it to Mrs. Letitia Scott, through Sears, in July of 1923 (which is why I listed it with a build year of "circa 1923", because it could have been built as early as 1920). There are nine Sears houses on these two blocks of Fairview Avenue, and I've authenticated seven of them (through mortgages or deeds connected to Sears). Four of those were houses originally bought by Blackwood & Schroeder, which I assume was a real estate or construction company, that built those houses, and then sold them to homeowners, and arranged for the new owners to have their mortgage through Sears (I guess that Blackwood & Schroeder had mortgages with Sears, and Sears allowed them to transfer those mortgages to the new homeowners). A. V. Wilder was possibly also a real estate or construction speculator, because, in addition to this Clyde that he sold to Mrs. Letitia Scott in July of 1923, he also ran ads for several days in August of 1923, for another house on Fairview Avenue:

This classified ad from A. V. Wilder ran for three or four days in August of 1923, in the Central New Jersey Home News newspaper. I can't say for certain that this is for another Sears house, but there are three others on Fairview Avenue that I have not yet tied to a mortgage with Sears.

I wasn't able to find out anything about Mrs. Letitia Scott -- not her age, nor if her husband was still living, nor if she had children, nor if she had a job -- I only know the terms of her purchase of this Clyde: She put down $100 toward the full purchase price of $5,300 (that would have included the lot, too, so it would have covered the lot, the already-built-kit, and the already-incurred construction costs), agreed to pay another $2,200 upon receipt of the deed, and then allowed to pay the $3,000 balance through a five-year mortgage (at 6%) with Sears. This is the first time that I have run across a mortgage or deed set up like this, wherein the homeowner was dealing with the original owner and Sears at the same time... it's the first time that I've seen the name of the model of the house mentioned, as well. Here are snippets of that mortgage agreement-- you should be able to enlarge them through a click or a pinch open:

However, that's not the end of the story for Sears and this house. In April of 1928, a new Sears deed related to this house (which sits on lots 495 & 496, block 14, Colonia 2), shows that the property was transferred to Charles W. Knauer... not from Letitia Scott, but from a transaction involving Asa V. Wilder, Blackwood & Schroeder, and Sears, Roebuck and Company, involving Sears trustee Walker O. Lewis... so, apparently Blackwood & Schroeder had a connection to this property originally, too. I don't know what happened to Letitia Scott, but she must not have been able to keep up her payments on the house, because the 1928 deed mentions a 1924 transaction for this property, between Sears and Blackwood and Schroeder, and Asa V. Wilder (in fact, perhaps that 1923 newspaper ad I showed above, was not, in fact, for a different house, but was maybe for this same house, if Letitia Scott defaulted on her payments). Several of the Sears houses in these two blocks, appear to have gone through more than one transfer of an original mortgage from Sears.

So, in April of 1928, Charles W. Knauer, and his wife Margaret Does Knauer (both age 34), settled into their new Sears Clyde house, with their three children,  Robert (age 6), Margaret (age 4), and Arthur (born that year). They were still shown as living in that house in the 1940 U. S. Census, and on Charles' 1942 WWII registration. Further research into the deed archives, shows that Charles and Margaret bought neighboring lots 497 and 498 in a foreclosure sale in 1941 (and then lots 499 and 500 in a foreclosure sale in 1943), so perhaps the addition to the house was put on after purchasing those neighboring lots in 1941. It looks like the Knauers sold the property (lots 495, 496, 497 498) in 1957, to Irving and Vivian Lopatin. The Lopatins sold the house (all four lots) in 1964, to Henry G. Westberg and his wife, Elvy Westberg. After their deaths, their daughter, Gertrude Westberg, lived in the house, until she sold it in 2004 to Zbigniew and Monika Korkowski.

The History Of the Clyde Model

Sears first offered a very large house under the model name Clyde... but it was first marketed as the No. 118. That large model was offered beginning in 1908, and continued in the catalogs until 1919.

Here is the original Clyde (No. 118) in the 1918 catalog. See that little dormer sticking up out of the front portion of the roof, just above that open-air sleeping porch? Well, if you ever see a really great match for this house, but it does not have that dormer, then it is most likely not the Sears model... because there was a plans-only house available through other plans-only companies, that looked just like this, but without that dormer. 

Here are two examples of "the big Clyde" that I've blogged about... one in Mexico, Missouri, and one in Almond, New York:

You can see lovely interior photos of this Mexico, Missouri Clyde, in this blog post.

And, you can see beautiful interior photos of this Almond, New York Clyde, here.

The Clyde Bungalow

Over the nine years that the Clyde bungalow was offered, it had a little bit of an exterior design change, and it had three possible floor plans. It ran in the catalogs from 1920-1929.

When first offered, it was shown like this... from 1920 through 1922:

The Clyde, in the 1922 Sears Modern Homes catalog. The 1920 catalog uses this same image, but the cost was $500 higher for either of the two "arrangements" of the kit, because the cost of construction supplies soared in the years right after WWI.

In the 1923 catalog, for some reason, they changed the style of the fireplace chimney, and added a trellis-style enclosure material for the front porch:

The slightly-changed look of the exterior of the Clyde, as shown only in 1923 and 1924.
The same two floor plans (9030 and 7030) were still offered.

Beginning in 1925, and continuing through 1929, the exterior of the Clyde got a more pronounced makeover, with a change to the look of the front porch pillars and short walls, and the elimination of the tracery in the gables:

The Sears Clyde as shown in the catalogs from 1925 through 1929.

Floor Plan Changes

Beginning with the 1925 catalog, and continuing in 1926, the no-bathroom floor plan #7030 was no longer offered, and the only option was the #9030 floor plan.

But, from 1927 through 1929, an additional variation of the #9030 floor plan was also an option. The original #9030 floor plan was then labeled "9030A", and the newer plan, which was four feet wider, and added additional windows in the dining room, living room, and front bedroom, was offered as #9030B.

Here are all three of the floor plans:

smallest Clyde floor plan, #7030, 1920 - 1924
(no-bathroom ) 

Clyde floor plan #9030 (later called #9030A), 1920-1929

Clyde floor plan # 9030B, 1927-1929 -- 4 feet wider than #9030
Additional window in the front bedroom (we see that in the side bump out), additional window in the living room (we see that to the left of the front door, in the uncovered section of the front porch), and additional window in the dining room (making a nice bank of three windows on that side of the dining room)

Other Clyde Bungalow Examples

The Clyde is a nice little model, and we've found it in many towns, often with additions. I'll finish off with a few examples:

Another now-enlarged  Sears Clyde bungalow, mortgaged through Sears in 1926, at 409 S Barton Street, Arlington, VA

Here's a Clyde with the smallest, no-bathroom floor plan (#7030)... you can see that there is no hallway connecting the bedrooms, they are just entered directly from the main rooms. A modern bathroom has now been added, and another addition for a larger kitchen, has been added on. At the time of this listing, the images show that the floors needed a refinishing, but the rest of the woodwork was original and in nice condition, and the house sits on a beautiful expanse of farm land. 3006 Weaver Rd, Mount Vernon, Ohio (see real estate photos here).

A modernized, vinyl-ized Clyde with enclosed front porch, 708 Rudolph Ave, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

Another #9030 floor plan example, for sale in 2021, lots of great, original woodwork and details, needing floor refinishing and updates... it sold, and I hope it wasn't torn apart and filled with grey wood-look vinyl plank flooring. 156 S Roys Avenue, Columbus, Ohio.  • Sears Clyde bungalow

3702 W 132nd St, Cleveland, Ohio (no interior views) • Sears Clyde bungalow

Vinyl-ized, carpeted, but in nice condition... Sears hinges. 10604 Dale Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio (interior views)  • Sears Clyde bungalow

Nice interior with original floors, original Craftsman trim everywhere: 3692 Saybrook Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio (interior views)  • Sears Clyde bungalow

38 Parker St, Belvidere, NJ (interior views from before it was re-painted and fixed up)  • Sears Clyde bungalow

An example of the wider, 9030B floor plan, Sears Clyde bungalow, but no interior views. 19548 Paxson Dr, South Bend, Indiana. This house was located by researcher Rebecca L. Hunter (Kithouse.org).

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For more information on who we are, and what we do, visit our website: SearsHouses.com

Sears Wayne In South Plainfield, New Jersey

 

Sears Wayne • 2234 Murray Avenue, South Plainfield, New Jersey

Sears Wayne in the 1928 Sears Modern Homes catalog

Here's a great example of a Sears bungalow that we don't show that often: the Sears Wayne model. The Wayne was first offered in 1925, replacing its almost-a-twin (at least from the outside), the Delmar, which was only offered in 1924 (researcher Andrew Mutch did an informative blog post about the differences, here). We find the Wayne in the catalogs through 1931.  I found this Wayne just through a real estate listing, a few years ago. I'm always hoping to find Sears houses in Middlesex County, New Jersey, because I've done research in the historic mortgage archives there... but, the searching is slow-going, because there is only access to the mortgage books listed by buyer... whereas we usually look through the books that are alphabetized by the mortgage lender. That helps narrow the search, because we can just look under the names of the Sears trustees. Having to look through the buyer books, means turning every single page of the dozen or so books, from this densely populated county, through about 15 years, just hoping to find a listing of William C. Reed or Edwards D. Ford. So far, in one outing, helped out by my sister, we got through the books for the last names starting with E, I think --ha! Lots more visits will be required. So... we don't know if this house had a mortgage through Sears (as many Sears houses of this era, did), but we are confident that it is a Sears house, because we found a few indicators: Sears Stratford model door handle hardware; a plinth block on the staircase, connecting two sizes of baseboards, which is not a usual use for a plinth block (they are more normally found at the base of door trim), but which Sears seems to have offered as a solution for the difficult carpentry task of connecting baseboards at different angles; and the floor plan follows along perfectly. Here... I'll show you:

We always look closely at the layout of all doors and windows... good match, here.

Here's the first-floor layout that we're looking for. Notice the staircase off to the side... that is one glaring difference between the 1924 Delmar and the 1925-31 Wayne... the location of the staircase. We're not sure of the build date of this Wayne, because Trulia says 1924, and Zillow says 1940... and it can't be either of those, since this floor plan was not offered in 1924, and the Wayne was no longer available, in 1940. Probably, one of those build years comes from the Middlesex County assessor's office, but, as I've mentioned many times before, those build-year records for houses, in many county assessor's offices, are usually off by some, or many, years. This house was probably built some time in the 1920s, because the Stratford design door handle hardware it has, is not shown in the 1930 building supplies catalog.

Floor plan of the Sears Wayne model

Here's the living room, looking down from the staircase, toward the two small windows of the left-side wall of the house. The front door, front window, and entry into the dining room, are just where we expect them:

Sears Wayne: living room

Here's that front door, in the 1929 Sears Building Supplies catalog:

Sears entry door options, 1929 Sears Building Supplies catalog

This house had a small addition put on to the back, and, probably at that time, the kitchen was re-configured a bit. It looks, from the style of the cabinets, to have been done probably in the 1960s. Here's the normal rear view of a Wayne--this one is in Willowick, Ohio. As you can see, there is a big dormer on the rear roof, as well. The rear window of the dining room, has been changed into a set of sliding glass doors, to access the back deck that was added on:

That smaller window indicates that there is a bathroom there.
(Real estate photos source)

And, here is our South Plainfield Wayne, from the rear:

...and, from the front, where you can see that addition:

And, while we're at it, this photo shows this side's windows, against the floor plan:

Side view of windows on the South Plainfield, New Jersey Sears Wayne, on Murray Avenue

You can see, from the window and door trim in this added-on area of the house, that it was added on -- the rest of the house has wide, craftsman, back band trim, as you see in the 1930 catalog, here:

1930 Sears Honor Bilt Building Materials catalog, here, on Archive.org

The dining room has the original, Craftsman trim on the windows, but, on the original back wall of the dining room, we see an entry door added on, and it has a much skinnier, different style trim, which is what you see in the addition, and in the re-done kitchen:

The kitchen, then, does not follow the floor plan correctly, because it was re-organized. The area indicated here, in yellow, was all changed up, changing the access to the basement staircase and side entry door, and opening up access to the living room, so you can now see the front window, and the staircase, from the kitchen, whereas we normally can't see that from the kitchen. The blue arrow points to the all-important furnace vent chimney, which we also see on the floor plan, indicated in blue.  I say, "all important", because it's one thing that you will almost never see changed, on a house... unless a major re-haul of the entire layout has been done... and this is something that I am frequently reminded of by my research buddies (I'm lookin' at you, Karen ;) ).  This helps us when we find a possible match for a Sears house, but it has some discrepancies. To rule it out as just a "lookalike", the placement of the vent chimney is something we look at.

You can tell that the kitchen window and the door ways we see here, are not original, because they have that skinnier trim. 

Second Floor, Sears Wayne

Upstairs, the floor plan looks like this:

Sears Wayne, second-floor layout

Here's the staircase, with its closet door at the top, and plinth block as it joins the landing:

Here's the plinth block, and you can see how it's connecting two different sizes of base board trim:

And this photo shows how all of the expected doors in this upper hallway, are in the correct spots:

Second-floor layout of the Sears Wayne -- the floor plan image isn't shown with the same orientation of the hall photo, but I've numbered the pertinent spots. #1 is the side window at the top of the stairs.

This photo of the closet corner of the big, front bedroom, shows the double doors of the closet, with Sears Stratford design door handle hardware:

Sears Stratford design door handle hardware, in the 1929 Sears building supplies catalog.

As you can see in the write up for the Wayne, in the 1928 catalog, Stratford door hardware is mentioned as coming standard with this model:

Sears Wayne in the 1928 Sears Modern Homes catalog

Bungalows came in all kinds of designs and sizes and styles, by every possible housing company, in the 1920s. It was a hugely popular style, in general. Two things that help us spot a Sears Wayne, are the distinctive lines of the front porch roof, and the chunky style of the outer columns on the porch. It's also unusual to find no porch railings, and no concrete or brick piers in the front... the columns just go from the ground to porch roof... two slim columns in the center, and two chunky columns, on the outer edges:

Most bungalow porch roofs follow down from the peak of the roof, in one straight, or slightly bent line, like these two Sears models, the Lakecrest, and the Vallonia:

The Lakecrest, as shown by Daily Bungalow, in the 1932 catalog, and a Sears Vallonia in Springdale, Ohio, as shown in this blog post of Sears Houses In Ohio, by Cindy Catanzaro.

The Wayne, however, has a pretty steep pitch to the main roof, and the porch roof is set in with a triangular section on each side of the porch roof:

You can see that pronounced angle well, on the Sears Wayne in Willowick, Ohio:

This example is unusual in that it has a side fireplace, but yet also has a side staircase, on the other side of the house. The Delmar's staircase is in the center of the house, whereas the Wayne's staircase is on the side entry door side. If you see a side fireplace, you have to check which side of the house it is on.

Staircase Location Sears Delmar vs Sears Wayne

The Sears Delmar was only offered in 1924. When we put the Delmar and Wayne floor plans side by side, we notice that the furnace vent chimney is a little further back, on the Delmar (cutting into the kitchen space), and that the staircase is in the center of the house, on the Delmar... whereas it is on the side-entry-door side wall of the Wayne. Therefore, if you see a fireplace chimney on THAT side of the house, you must be looking at a Delmar, since the Wayne has its staircase at that side wall of the house.

We have interior views of only one Delmar on our list, this one at 360 High Street, Highspire, Pennsylvania:

Sears Delmar -- Note the fireplace chimney on the side wall where the side entry door is located. This is only possible on the Delmar, not the Wayne.
360 High Street, Highspire, Pennsylvania (real estate images)

Two views of the centrally located staircase of the Delmar:

360 High Street, Highspire, Pennsylvania (real estate images)

360 High Street, Highspire, Pennsylvania (real estate images)
That is Sears Stratford door handle hardware.

This is a great example of the Sears Wayne, and just one of the many Sears houses that I'm sure are dotting the landscape of Middlesex County, New Jersey. If you'd like to see the rest of the photos of the house, here is the Zillow.com listing, from 2017. Let's finish with the full-on front view of this very nice house:

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For more information on who we are, and what we do, visit our website: SearsHouses.com