J. E. Latham's Aladdin Houses In Greensboro, North Carolina

Authenticated Aladdin Brentwood • 318 W. Bessemer, Greensboro, North Carolina • 1919
This is one of the many Aladdin Readi-Cut home kits purchased by J. E. Latham in 1919.

J. E. Latham was a cotton man. A big cotton man, according to the papers.  In the 1920s in Greensboro, North Carolina, he was one of the main stockholders of Latham Cotton Company ("The name Latham in the cotton business is known in every state where cotton is produced and in every country throughout the world where cotton is sold to mills."*), though, before its dissolution in August of 1922, he was involved in the Latham-Bradshaw Cotton Company, which split off to form Bradshaw-Roberson Cotton.  But, besides being a "cotton merchant and capitalist" (as he was described in an article in the Greensboro Daily News on September 4, 1921 [page 6]), he was also involved in buying and selling real estate, through his company, "J. E. Latham Company". And, that's where Aladdin Homes enters the story.

*Announcement that ran in the Greensboro Daily News, (Greensboro, North Carolina) on Sunday, August 6, 1922, p. 51

In 1917, the J. E. Latham Company was advertising homes and lots in the lovely Fisher Park neighborhood in Greensboro:

Greensboro Daily News, August 30, 1917, page 10.

In 1919, Latham ordered twelve Aladdin homes (among them some of the finest designs Aladdin offered) to be built on spec in the Fisher Park neighborhood. These homes were built on West Bessemer Avenue, Wharton Street, and Keogh Street (now called N. Eugene St.). Latham bought Aladdin Readi-Cut kits to be constructed on these plots, and then offered up the homes for re-sale.

The West Bessemer/Wharton Street/N. Eugene Street area is where J. E. Latham's lots were centered.

The October 1, 1919 issue of the Greensboro Daily News, listed 11 building permits issued to J. E. Latham, for lots on Bessemer, Wharton, and Keogh:

Greensboro Daily News, October 1, 1919
I actually found this after having located all of the houses... it certainly would have saved me time, had I found it first!

The kits purchased in 1919 by Latham are of twelve different Aladdin models:

• The Colonial
• The Brentwood
• The Kentucky
• The Shadow Lawn
• The Pasadena (B)
• The Georgia (#2)
• The Venus (#2)
• The Marsden
• The Winthrop
• The Willard
• The Hudson (not located)
• The Florence (not located)

Though the kits were purchased in 1919, the Guilford County records give 1920 and 1921 build dates for many of the homes.

J. E. Latham's Aladdin Readi-Cut kit home purchases. This list was transcribed from original, hand-written Aladdin sales lists, from the Bay City Aladdin factory, obtained by researchers Andrew and Wendy Mutch, and painstakingly transcribed by Wendy Mutch.  Many thanks go out to them for graciously sharing this research with us.

Let's take a look at the still-beautiful homes that Latham had constructed in Greensboro. Settle in with a nice glass of red wine (or a cup of hot cocoa), because we've got eleven houses to see:

The Aladdin Colonial

322 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina 

Aladdin's Colonial model is one of its biggest and grandest homes.  This one has had a few modifications made to it, but it is documented as a Latham home. He sold it -- to great acclaim -- to Lou M. Bradshaw, for $13,000, in 1922. Bradshaw was, I believe, the Bradshaw of the Latham-Bradshaw Cotton Company.

322 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina • 1919 • Authenticated Aladdin Colonial model

Here is the W. Bessemer house, shown next to the 1917 Aladdin catalog image of the Colonial.

From the 1917 Aladdin catalog, available here.

When the home was sold to Bradshaw, the price of the purchase made quite a splash, headlining a newspaper article about home purchases in the area:

Greensboro Daily News, January 11, 1921

 A check of the 1923 Greensboro city directory shows us that the "lot on Bessemer avenue" is, indeed, at the address of the Aladdin Colonial:

1923 Greensboro, NC, city directory

Here is a look at the floor plan of the Colonial, as shown in the 1917 catalog:

Aladdin Colonial floorplan, 1917 catalog. 

The Colonial, as described in the 1917 catalog.

The Aladdin Brentwood

318 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina

On the lot right next to the Colonial, sits this beautiful Aladdin Brentwood:

318 W. Bessemer Avenue, North Carolina • 1919 authenticated Aladdin Brentwood

 And, here it is shown next to the 1917 Aladdin catalog image.  You can see that the style of the door (at least the overhang) was modified, as was the look of the small roof over the front bump-out on the left side of the front elevation:

Here is the West Bessemer Avenue house compared to the image of the Brentwood in the 1917 Aladdin catalog.

Floor plan of the Aladdin Brentwood

Description of the Brentwood, in the 1917 catalog. 

The reception hall of the Brentwood, as depicted in the 1917 Aladdin catalog.

It appears that Dr. B. R. Lyon was the first owner to occupy the home at 318 W. Bessemer...
and, I see that, in the 1950s, the E. D. Broadhurst Jr. family lived there.
I know a Broadhurst from a Morehead City, NC Broadhurst family, a town on the coast... I wonder if they are related?

The next houses are all in the same neighborhood, a short stretch of W. Bessemer Avenue, that changes name at the bend of the street, and becomes Wharton Avenue.

The Aladdin Kentucky

406 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina

Authenticated Aladdin Kentucky, 406 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina
(Image courtesy of the Guilford County assessor.)

I couldn't be more delighted to have found this Kentucky! Not only am I tickled to see an authenticated Aladdin Kentucky (there are a number of lookalikes out there, by different companies), but it was amazing how I found it.  

The W. Bessemer Avenue Aladdin Kentucky, compared to the Kentucky image in my 1920 Aladdin catalog.

I knew that one of Latham's homes was a Kentucky model, but, after finding the Colonial and the Brentwood, I had spent a good bit of time Google "driving" the streets on that side of the Fisher Park neighborhood, interspersed with various Google searches, and historic newspaper searches.  I had centered my search in the Fisher Park neighborhood, after running across this nomination form for Historic Fisher Park to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. I had done a search for J. E. Latham, and I ran across the mention of the 1913 home of James Edwin Latham (known as the Latham-Baker house) in the NRHP nomination form. It gave the address as 412 Fisher Park Circle, so I began hunting in that area, figuring that his Aladdin spec homes might be nearby.  By chance, I hit upon the Colonial and the Brentwood, and then the Marsden (which I'll be showing in a bit), but I just couldn't find the Kentucky... or the Shadow Lawn, which I was also itching to see.  

The Aladdin Kentucky, with the Aladdin Shadow Lawn peaking out from behind trees, right next door.

So, after being side-tracked by various things, I decided to come back to the Google map of the area, but I hadn't actually noted yet what the address was of the two big homes I had already found. I remembered a cross street, so I figured I'd just plop my Google map cursor right around there, and start looking on more streets.  Well, I didn't accurately place my cursor on the lots where the Colonial and the Brentwood sat... instead, much to my delight, when I switched to street-view, from map view, lo-and-behold, I found myself smack in front of the Aladdin Kentucky! And right next to it, was the beautiful Aladdin Shadow Lawn that I'll be showing at the end of the blog post.  As I "drove" down the street, I realized that I had hit upon almost all of Latham's plots, as I ran across the Pasadena, the Willard, the Winthrop, the Georgia, and the Venus... not to mention what I think are examples also of an Aladdin Hampshire, and an Aladdin Sunshine.

It's just about impossible, unfortunately, to get a good shot of that Kentucky, but here it is again, next to the Shadow Lawn, this time thanks to Bing maps.

Another Bing maps view of the Kentucky.

I have to admit that, though the Kentucky is 43' wide, sitting there next to the other bungalows, it doesn't look like the big, sprawling house that I thought it was. There was an even smaller additional model, in 1915 and before, but this house on W. Bessemer is the biggest version.

The Kentucky, as shown in my 1915 Aladdin catalog. 

The larger, 43' wide Kentucky No. 2 floor plan, is shown on the right, and the  smaller (and later discontinued) model is shown on the left. This is from my 1915 Aladdin catalog, the last year that the smaller version was offered.
You can see all of the Aladdin catalogs online, here.

Aladdin Kentucky floor plan, larger of the two models (though only this one was offered in 1919).

This is the footprint of the Kentucky at 406 W. Bessemer, as shown on the Guilford County assessor's website.
This footprint shows that the W. Bessemer Avenue Kentucky is the reverse floor plan to that shown in the catalog.

Aladdin Pasadena (B)
410 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina

Authenticated Aladdin Pasadena (B floor plan) • 410 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina • 1919
Image courtesy of the  Guilford County assessor's website.

Here is the West Bessemer Avenue house, compared to the image of the Pasadena in the 1920 Aladdin catalog.

The house looks really cute now, with the new pale yellow paint job, and well-chosen accent colors. It's almost impossible to get a good street view or Bing maps view of it, however. This shot at least shows the clipped gables and the enclosed porch area.  It looks like the house must be a reverse floor plan, though there also looks to be some kind of enclosed room or addition on the left side of the house.

The Aladdin Pasadena came in two floor plans, and this house on Bessemer Avenue is the B plan:

The floor plan on the right is what the Bessemer Avenue house has, though reversed.
Since we see the large chimney jutting out of the center of the back of the roof,
they must have opted for the addition of a fireplace against that back wall of the living room.

These 3-D floor plans give a great idea of the feel inside the house. This looks to be the B floor plan.

In the case of this house, we even have J. E. Latham listed on the ownership history card from the assessor's website:

Aladdin Willard
412 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina

Authenticated Aladdin Willard • 412 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina

The Aladdin Willard model looks to have only been available in the 1918 and 1919 catalogs. I don't find it in the 1917 or 1920 catalogs. It is a modest bungalow, but, like the other homes on this street, it has been kept up nicely.  It, too, seems to have the reverse floor plan to the catalog, and, of course, the great screened-in porch.

Here is the W. Bessemer house compared against the 1919 Aladdin catalog image for the Willard.

Blurry floor plan image, from the 1919 catalog.

Aladdin Winthrop
414 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina

Authenticated Aladdin Winthrop model • 414 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina.
Image courtesy of Bing maps (always a darker image, unfortunately, but the Google maps image blocks the view of the bumpout on the left).

Here is the 1917 Aladdin catalog image of the Winthrop, compared next to the extant house on W. Bessemer.
Note the window arrangement, the placement of the front door, the side bump-out with a side window and a set of multiple windows. The chimney on that side is an addition, and may go for a basement wood burner, or for a heating system, as the chimney we see on the left side, is for the living room fireplace (as shown on the floor plan, below).

Description of the Aladdin Winthrop, as shown in the 1917 Aladdin catalog. 

Front of 414 W. Bessemer Avenue, Aladdin Winthrop

Left side of the Aladdin Winthrop on W. Bessemer Avenue. This chimney is for the living room fireplace.
Note how the number and layout of the windows matches the floor plan shown in the catalog. There are many long, straight bungalows of this style, offered by many plan and kit-home companies. You have to pay close attention to the placement of the windows and front door, and to how the porch roof connects (smoothly, not set in) to the main roof.

The image above is from Google maps street view, and it shows us that West Bessemer Avenue stops here, at this lovely Aladdin Winthrop, and becomes Wharton Street. The next several houses will be on that stretch of Wharton Street.

Aladdin Venus (No. 2)
1005 Wharton Street, Greensboro, North Carolina

Authenticated Aladdin Venus (No. 2) • 1005 Wharton Street, Greensboro, North Carolina
Image courtesy of the Guilford County assessor's website. 

Here is the Wharton Street house next to the image from the 1917 Aladdin catalog.  This is yet another house with a reversed floor plan from what is shown in the catalog.

You can see that they squeezed in a fireplace on the living room. This is the reverse floor plan of model No. 2, keep in mind.

From the 1917 Aladdin catalog.

This is one of those that lists the J. E. Ltham Co as owner, on the assessor's card.

Aladdin Georgia (No.2)
1001 Wharton Street, Greensboro, North Carolina

Authenticated Aladdin Georgia (No. 2, the larger size with the same layout as No. 1)
1001 Wharton Street, Greensboro, North Carolina • 1919

Aladdin Georgia in the 1920 Aladdin catalog.
The house on Wharton Street is the reverse floor plan to what is shown in the catalog.

From the 1920 Aladdin catalog.

From the 1920 Aladdin catalog.

From the 1920 Aladdin catalog.

Aladdin Marsden
815 N. Eugene Street, Greensboro, North Carolina

Authenticated Aladdin Marsden • 815 N. Eugene Street, Greensboro, North Carolina
According to the application for Fisher Park neighborhood to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places, N. Eugene Street was originally called Keogh Street. J. E. Latham had two building permits in 1919 for homes on Keogh Street.

The N. Eugene Street house next to the 1917 catalog image.

From the 1917 Aladdin catalog.

Aladdin Shadow Lawn
404 West Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina

Authenticated Aladdin Shadow Lawn • 404 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina • 1919

Ahhhhh.
And, now, for the pièce de résistance ... an absolutely stunning Aladdin Shadow Lawn, with gorgeous interior photos, thanks to this 2015 Zillow listing. Click any image to enlarge.

Here is the Shadow Lawn in the 1917 Aladdin catalog.

And here is our authenticating piece: the ownership history card tying this house to J. E. Latham Company.
From the Guilford County assessor's website

To see my earlier blog post about a lovely Aladdin Shadow Lawn in Bennington, Vermont, click here.

Now... that is the end of the homes that I found, from the list of those purchased by J. E. Latham Company, in Greensboro, North Carolina.  He also bought an Aladdin Hudson kit, and an Aladdin Florence kit, but I have not found them (though I noticed that he had two building permits for Keogh Street (now N. Eugene Street), and I didn't see either of those models on that street. Here they are from the 1918 catalog:

If you run across them in Greensboro, please let me know!

What are Aladdin homes?
For more information, read this previous blog post.

Addendum:
Another Shadow Lawn in Greensboro

706 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Greensboro, North Carolina
This is thought by some to be a Sears house. It is a kit house, it is a mail-order house, but it is not a SEARS house. It is a mail-order kit house by the Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan, and the model name is Shadow Lawn.

One of my researcher friends ran across this August 27, 2016 online newspaper article, published by N&R Greensboro.com.

N&R Greensboro.com, Published by the News & Record

In the article, much to our delight, the topic of Greensboro Sears homes was discussed.  We LOVE Sears homes, and we LOVE learning about them and finding them around the country (so much so that we have been working on a National Database of Sears Homes, and we now have over 5000 Sears homes on it). But, what we see in this article, is a common mistake: a house known to have been a mail-order kit house, is referred to as a "Sears" house, when it is actually a kit home by a different company.  The house above, at 706 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Greensboro, North Carolina, is the one mentioned in the article, but it is not a model offered by Sears. Instead, it is a beautiful example of the Shadow Lawn model made by the Aladdin Company of Bay City Michigan (they also had a Wilmington, North Carolina plant, starting in about 1920).  We would love if the writer of this article, Harry Thetford, would consider writing a new article to point out that, not only is this house an Aladdin Company house, but there are many other Aladdin homes in Greensboro.

Here is the 1920 Aladdin Company catalog's depiction of the Shadow Lawn, compared to the house at 706 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.  (You can see the full catalog here.)

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Visit our website: SearsHouses.com

Aladdin Shadow Lawn in Bennington, Vermont

Authenticated Aladdin Shadow Lawn • 1919 • 209 Weeks Street, Bennington, Vermont

One of our favorite houses to run across, is the Aladdin Shadow Lawn.  This is another find from our Aladdin sales list (read about that, and the Aladdin Homes company, here).  When I located it, I couldn't believe in what beautiful condition it is. Can you believe that this house was built in 1919?

And, here it is, in the 1922 catalog-- same colors, same stones!

Aladdin offered the Shadow Lawn from 1917-1922.  Before that, beginning, I believe, in the 1913 catalog, they offered a very similar model, called the Massachusetts. The exterior is very close, as is the first floor layout (though it had a large bump-out in the dining room, absent on the later Shadow Lawn ), but the second floor gets some changes made to the sizes and layout of the bedrooms. For one thing, the 1913-15 Massachusetts offered an oh-so-practical large Billiard Room on the second floor, larger than any of the three bedrooms, but this was done away with in the 1916 version of the Massachusetts, in favor of four similar-sized bedrooms. The two models were pretty similar in floor plan by the time that the Shadow Lawn was introduced in 1917. 

One Little Window, or Two?
Another obvious visual difference in the front, that we researchers look for, is the number of small windows on the front upper floor, just under the peak. The Shadow Lawn has just one.  Until now, we've always thought of the Massachusetts having two little windows there. And, in the catalog images for all years (1913-1916), you see two little windows on the house that is pictured in the catalog. But... NOT on the floor plan!  The floor plan for the 1913, 1914, and 1915 models shows NO little windows up in the center section of the floor plan.  So do the houses from those years have them, or not?

The little windows under the peak: this is what we first notice when trying to distinguish between the Massachusetts and the Shadow Lawn.  Why, then, do several years of the catalog not show them at all, in the floor plan?

Front Porch Roof
I've also noticed that the catalog images show the roof of the front porch ending at a different spot on the Shadow Lawn, than it does on the Massachusetts.  Take a look at this comparison, noting the areas that I've indicated in yellow.  The Shadow Lawn's porch roof looks to extend all the way to the right side of the first-floor right-side front window. On the Massachusetts, the porch roof support stops just before that window even starts (so, it stops at the left-side edge of that window), and then the porch roof itself extends just a bit more to the right.... but, nowhere near as far as it does on the Shadow Lawn. Let's take a look:

Note the end-point of the porch roof on the two different models.

However... look at the real-life, authenticated Shadow Lawn in Bennington... the porch roof looks to actually end where it does on the Massachusetts! So... I'm wondering if the artist making the catalog image of the Shadow Lawn didn't just take the liberty of extending the porch roof, just so that there wouldn't be a big porch post obscuring the front window:

Back Windows: The Dining Room
Another window difference that we see in the floor plan, is in the dining room.  Yes, the Massachusetts, all years, has the dining room bump out, and the Shadow Lawn does not. But, the back windows of the dining room are also different, on the floor plan, along the years.  In the Massachusetts floor plan of 1913 and 1914, there are two windows, widely spaced apart. In 1915 and 1916, there are three windows there.  Once the model becomes the Shadow Lawn, there is only one, large, centered window in that spot.

From my own 1914 Aladdin catalog.

Aladdin Massachusetts floor plan in 1915, with notations for changes in 1913 and 1914.

The Massachusetts' floor plans, from my 1916 catalog.

Shadow Lawn:

The Shadow Lawn: Notice that the back window of the dining room is now just one, single window, compared to two, or three (depending on the model year) on the Massachusetts' floor plan.

And here are some closer views of the Shadow Lawn's floor plans:

From the 1919 Aladdin catalog on Archive.org.

Source

Here is an image of the living room of the Shadow Lawn.

A Clone By C.L. Bowes

C. L. Bowes was a publisher of house plans (not kits, just blue prints) in the 1920s. The C. L. Bowes plans were usually made available through books offered at local lumber yards, who were constantly in competition with the kit-house, mail-order house companies, for business.  Many of the C. L. Bowes plans are almost exact replicas of already-existing mail-order kit models.  Bowes offered a "clone" (as we call them), to the Aladdin Shadow Lawn. Here it is in 1923.  Notice that the upper-floor windows on the front elevation are wider, and so have noticeably less space between them, and the little small single window between them. The windows are also triples, having three same-size windows together, whereas the Aladdin Massachusetts and Shadow Lawn have a triple there, with a larger center window.  The Bowes version, and the Shadow Lawn, are both 28' wide, whereas the Massachusetts is 30 feet wide.

Another difference on the Bowes "clone", is that the center front peak is higher up than it is on the Massachusetts and the Shadow Lawn.

Note that the upper windows are wider than those on the Aladdin models, and therefore the space between them, and the little center window, is much less.  Also, the peak of that front gable is higher.  You can see that the brackets above the windows are much higher up than on the Aladdin models, where those brackets are touching the top of the windows.
source

For comparison:

See how those brackets are actually touching the tops of the big windows on the second floor, and the triple-windows themselves are not as wide as on the C.L. Bowes plan house.

Back To Bennington
Back to the beautiful Shadow Lawn in Bennington, Vermont.  It is really in a lovely setting, with mountains far off in the distance, behind the house.

Aladdin Shadow Lawn in Bennington, Vermont... lovely setting!

And, the house, from a different angle:

The man who ordered this beautiful home, was Earl Williams. Earl was the president of The Bennington Garage, where he sold very nice cars.

From the Bennington, Vermont city directory, 1928.

Throughout the 1920s, ads ran very frequently in the Bennington Banner newspaper, advertising the cars sold at Mr. Williams' place of business. This one appeared on March 23, 1922, page 6:

I've learned a good bit about the differences between the Aladdin Massachusetts and the Aladdin Shadow Lawn, thanks to researching for this blog post.  If you think you know of examples of either of these Aladdin models, or one of the "too tall" models, as we call the C. L. Bowes version, please leave a comment, or use the "Contact Me" spot on the side of the blog.

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