St. Joseph, MO: Radford House Design No. 102

2705 Renick Street, St. Joseph, MO • 1911
Radford design No. 102

In an earlier blog post about a Radford house design with a centered turret-style dormer, I showed the plan book page of this design, from a 1903 Radford catalogue.  I thought I had run across it in my Google-map travels around the streets of St. Jospeh, Missouri... and, indeed I had! Here it is, looking wonderful for its 100+ years of age. 

This image from Google Maps shows the same address in a previous year,
presumably before the beautiful renovations had been done.

It looks like the builder added a side window for the front upstairs bedroom.  That wall had no window in the plans.

Another pre-renovation shot from Google Maps.

Here is Design No. 102 in the 1903 Radford Ideal Homes: 100 House Plans catalogue,
available HERE on Archive.org.

Click to enlarge a bit more.

The renovated house was for sale recently, and is shown on Trulia.com. The very top image, and all of the interior images below, come from that listing, accessible HERE.

I found an earlier listing, too (complete with blurry photos.... aaaarrrgggh!), that shows the previous incarnation of the kitchen, as well as the fireplace: HERE on Zillow.

Of course, I can't officially document that this 1911 home is the Radford Design No. 102, because I can't access real estate information for Buchanan County, Missouri, without paying a (hefty) fee.  All I would be able to get would be a footprint, anyway.  I don't know how one would actually verify that a house was a Radford design, without a copy of the blueprints. 

It looks like a good match to me, though! What do you think?

(To read a bit more about the history of St. Joseph, Missouri, or a bit more about buying Radford House Designs, see my previous post, HERE.)

St. Joseph, MO: Radford Planbook House, No. 564 and Similar Models

Radford model No. 564 •  2702 Sacramento, St. Joseph, MO • 1912

Historic St. Joseph, Missouri, looks to be home to a number of homes built from Radford Architectural Company's plan-book house plans.  These are not kits -- these homes were built after the owner bought only the house plans / blueprints from the Radford company.  It was up to the owner to hire a contractor and builder to figure out the lumber needed, order everything, and build the house.

This beautifully-kept-up 1912 home looks a perfect match for the Radford Homes No. 564 (even down to the little upper ornamentation along the edges of the front porch).

Okay, it's true that I wish it had the double windows on the front part of the middle section of windows,
but, surely, it's still a 564.

You can see this house plan for yourself on Archive.org 

in the 1903 plan book:  The Radford American Homes: 100 House Plans

About Design No. 564

The No. 564 was known as the No. 1564 in later plan books, as seems to be the case with Radford. I haven't figured out the reason for this change in numbering, but I've noticed this addition of the 1 or of a 2 in front of the original number, in books after 1903.

These are the floorplans for the No. 1564 in a 1907 book of Radford plans (seen HERE).
They are identical to the floorplans shown in the 1903 book.

The side windows go well with the layout of windows on the house plans of the No. 564.

As I traveled around the streets near this house, via Google maps, I ran across a yellow version of this same house.  Unfortunately, I did not note the street, so I don't have the address, but I did snag a photo:

This home does have the second set of double windows on the second floor of this side of the house.

There is no way for me to verify the size and footprint of this house against the floorplans, as would be needed to help document it as a likely Radford No. 564, because Buchanan County, Missouri does not have free online access to its public records information for real estate. They charge 25¢ per minute, or $250 for a month's access to their detailed records.  Documentation is interesting, but not necessary at those prices :) I found the year from a Trulia listing. 

This is from the Public Record Search page of the Buchanan County, Missouri, assessor's page.

Other Small-Turret-Style-Dormer Houses

When you're first noticing different kinds of house designs, you sometimes only retain a vague recollection of a major feature or two of a house, once you've run across its design somewhere. For this house, surely, the major feature would be that unusual little turret-style dormer.  In fact, when I first saw this house on Sacramento Street, I thought immediately of a Sears house I knew that I had seen, with some kind of rounded dormer sticking out of the center of its front roof.  Since I don't have every aspect of every house's design engraved on my brain, I rushed to look through my Houses By Mail guide, to check this house against that one. 

Heavens. Not at all alike. But, the Sears No. 190 (available only for a few years in the early 19-teens) does have a curved turret-style dormer.  In fact, this feature is carried through from the first floor, where you see a bay window the same size as the dormer's bay shape.  

A quick Google image search of the Sears No. 190, brings me an image from Sears house researcher Rosemary Thornton's May 25, 2012 blog post about this model.  Click HERE to read her post and see the image of a No. 190 out in the world (I believe it's in Richmond, Virginia).  Here is a 1912 catalogue image of the No. 190, taken from Rose's blog post:

Click to enlarge. But, do go to Rose's blog post to read more. This is her image, not mine.

Interestingly, Rose shows a house in that blog post that looks almost exactly like the Sears No. 190, but it sports a slightly different style porch roof and front porch posts.  Sometimes, this could be explained away as unimportant and a probable simple design change at time of purchase of the home package from Sears.  But, in this case, it turns out that another company, Chicago House Wrecking Company (later known as Harris Brothers), had a version of this house -- the No. 84 -- that has those exact differences from the Sears No. 190.  

This image is from the April 7, 2015 blog post of Sears Homes of Chicagoland.

In an excellent entry on her Sears Homes of Chicagoland  blog,  Lara S. provides interesting background information on Harris Brothers and the Model No. 84 house.  She shows two homes in Maywood, Illinois, that have apparently been mis-identified as possible Sears No. 190 houses. 

Her entry is really worth the read, and you can access it HERE.

Chicago Millwork Supply Co. Clone of the Sears No. 190

But... to confuse matters more, another company had an almost exact lookalike to the Sears No. 190: Chicago Millwork Supply Company's Design A-119, shown here:

Chicago Millwork Supply Company's Design A-119.
This image comes from their 1912 catalogue, accessed HERE.

Click to enlarge.

There's really no way to distinguish these two models from each other, from the outside.  Even from the inside, it would be a challenge. Since they were offered in years before the pre-cut era, there would therefore be no markings on the lumber. I suppose that you might find shipping labels attached under millwork, but the layout is just the same. The biggest difference looks to be the size of the upstairs front bedroom, which C-M lists as being 12 x 13'6", and Sears lists as being 12 X 10'10":

Click to enlarge.
Read Rose Thornton's blog post HERE.

Other Radford Models

Radford has another house plan with a kind of crazy-looking large rounded turret-style section in the center of the top half of the house.  It's design No. 102.  Here it is from the 1903 book on Archive.org:

You can see this image HERE, on Archive.org.

I am pretty sure that I saw one of these on one of the streets of St. Joseph, but I didn't note where. Look around, maybe you'll find it! UPDATE: I found it! You can see it in this new blog post.

I have also noticed that there is another Radford design similar to the No. 564: the No. 9053.  The centered front turret-style dormer seems to be a bit larger than on the No. 564, and there is only a half-porch in the front.  This design was shown in the 1908 Radford's Artistic Homes- 250 Designs catalogue.

You can see it in the catalogue online, HERE.

a 1908 Radford catalogue

Or, what looks like an earlier version of the No. 9053, the "Design No. 4" from the 1902 Ideal Homes--100 House Plans Radford catalogue:

Access this image online, HERE. 

Click HERE to go to the opening page of this catalogue.

St. Joseph, Missouri

St. Joseph is a historically significant town.  The Pony Express took off from St. Joe, and, during the time of Westward Expansion in the United States, it was the last railroad stop on the route toward the Oregon Territory. After St. Joe, it was horses and covered wagons for the rest of the trip. 

To learn a bit more about St. Joseph, Missouri, and also a bit more about buying Radford house designs, you can read my previous post about Radford design No. 121 (a double-gambrel house design seen all over the streets of St. Joseph).  

If you know of the location of that Radford No. 102 in St. Joe, please feel free to let me know in a comment, below.  If you have a Radford design home, I'd love to know about it!

That's Not A Sears Silverdale... or a GVT No. 167!

Chicago Millwork Supply Company, Design A 114.
(From the 1912 catalogue, "Plan of modern homes, A 302", CLICK HERE)

There's a new kid in town.

Well, not very new in existence -- but, completely new to me.  I've discovered another look-alike to the Sears Silverdale (No. 110 in the early years): Chicago Millwork Supply Company model A-114.

I became interested in Sears homes because I found out, when I was a teenager, that my mother grew up in a Sears No. 110 (Silverdale). It was built by my mom's paternal grandparents in 1911 (you can read all about it, and the family history related to it, by clicking HERE). Since then, whenever I peruse kit-home or plan-book catalogues, I keep a keen eye out for similar houses.  Up until now, I had only found the Gordon-Van-Tine (GVT) No. 167. But, now, I have also learned of the A-114 by C-M (let's call them that for brevity). 

Here are the three models. Do you notice ANY differences??
Sears 1923   •    GVT 1916    •    C-M 1912

Looking at the exterior shots from the catalogues, no differences probably hit you right away-- right? 

And... here are the floorplans.
Notice any glaring differences??

You'd have to look really, really carefully, at every detail, to see any differences here, wouldn't you. They're all 40' deep, and 24'6" wide.  Every room is the same size, and every room is in the same spot. Oh... hold on.... Look! The C-M A 114 has a big built-in sideboard in the dining room.  That takes up some space from the right-side bedroom, making it smaller. Of course, you'd have to be INSIDE of the house to ever see this! Next... you should look at the windows, to see if they land in the same spot on each model... hmm... hold on.... the GVT bedroom window is not quite centered on the wall, as it is in the other two models. Boy, that would be hard to tell from the outside, though.

Ah... but, wait :) There is something that is very clear to see here: the front porch has differences across the three models. Take a look at this comparison:

Compare where the entry is to the front porch...
and, more importantly, how many sections there are to the roof of the front porch.

Here are three Sears Silverdale/110 front porches.
Obviously, the entry spot was moved on our Silverdale in MA, but the diagonal roof section is in place.

You can see that these three Sears Silverdales (1928, 1915, 1911) all have that diagonal section of the roof of the porch.

This google-maps image of a probable GVT 167 in Hettick, Illinois, shows the different look
of a porch roof with only 3 sections.
Notice that the diagonal section is not on this house.  Not a Sears Silverdale.  Most likely a GVT 167.
(This house was found by Rosemary Thornton, and written about originally in a blog post you can read HERE. )

But, there is another difference: the size of the window of the entry vestibule off of the front porch.

The Silverdale image here is from the 1923 catalogue.
Actually, I've just noticed that the 1916 catalogue image shows a full-size window in the vestibule, not a 3/4.
Still... not the little box window of the GVT.

Here are the three Sears Silverdales... with their 3/4 size vestibule windows:

And, here is the probable GVT 167 in Hettick, Illinois, with its little square window in the vestibule:

I believe that the Sears model was available in the first catalogue, in 1908.  Though I haven't seen it, I understand that the GVT model was available beginning in 1910.  The earliest C-M catalogue I've seen, is the 1912 on Archive. org. 

If you'd like to see some of these images in the catalogue, these links will lead you to them:

 Sears 264B110 in the 1916 Catalogue: click here

 Sears Silverdale in the 1923 Catalogue: click here

 Gordon-Van Tine's Standard Homes, 1916, on Archive.org

 Chicago Millwork Supply Company, 1912 Catalogue, A302

And if, like me, you hadn't really heard much about Chicago Millwork Supply Company, here is a little blurb about them (thanks to Cindy Catanzaro, who leads tours of Sears homes in Springfield, Ohio):

This comes from a book entitled, The Central Manufacturing District (info HERE).

All of these models, by the way, were available as kits-- blueprints along with lumber, screws, nails, lathing, windows, paint, roof shingles, and plenty more... but, not pre-cut to size.  At least, not for Sears, until about 1916.  And, the designs for Gordon-Van-Tine in the 1916 "Standard Homes" catalogue I link to, were also not pre-cut.

This is from the  1912 Chicago Millwork Supply Co. catalogue ad for the A-114.
That's the same price that the Sears model cost in the 1916 catalogue. The GVT in 1916 was $924.
By 1923, the Sears Silverdale included a bathroom, and the price was up to $2, 247.

Thanks to Lara, from Sears Homes of Chicagoland, for finding the white 1915 Pennsylvania Silverdale I've mentioned here.  Her blog is full of interesting information on Sears homes, and you can also find there a link to an online database of Sears homes (she, along with several other noted researchers, have been working hard to document the history of these historic homes). You can find her blog HERE.

If you know of another Silverdale look-alike, please don't hesitate to let me know in a comment, below.