Kit Houses: Home - Research Guides - University of Maryland

According to Houses by Mail, over 100,000 kit houses were built in the United States between and . Many people have lived in kit houses for years without realizing the historical and architectural significance of their humble abodes.

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Aladdin Homes of Bay City, Michigan premiered the idea of kit houses in . It wasn't until that the largest provider of kit houses, Sears, Roebuck and Co., building upon its earlier forays into building materials and house plans, entered the market for complete kit houses. In the years that followed, Wardway Homes (Montgomery Ward), Harris Homes of Chicago, the Ready Built House Company, and Robinson's also got in on the kit home market.

Sears Roebuck is still the most well-known of kit home manufacturers, perhaps because of their market share. Ordering directly from a catalog entitled Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans, prospective buyers enjoyed the convenience and affordability of a pre-fabricated dwelling. The purchaser would receive all of the necessary supplies in shipments by rail car (a typical house could fit into two boxcars) for assembly either by the new homeowner or a local contractor. These houses came in a wide variety of styles, designs and prices, although kit houses were generally cheaper than traditional building options.

Following the stock market crash of , the construction of these houses gradually declined and in Sears printed its last Book of Modern Homes. For many years these house were slowly forgotten, but in the s, people looking for affordable housing began to discover kit houses. In the past two decades, scholars and local historians have documented kit houses throughout the United States. Still, many people live in kit houses without knowing their unique origin and place in America's architectural and cultural heritage. (Sources: Houses By Mail (Stevenson & Jandl); Arts and Crafts Society Webpage).

Photo courtesy of Patrick Barta Photographyfor Prefabulous Small Houses published by Taunton Press

In the late s and early s one could purchase the parts of a house from a catalogue. The components would then be delivered to the homeowner  by train. Most often the homeowner would put the house together themselves according to detailed instructions. Depending of course on the ability of the builder, many of these houses were very well built and still standing today.

Photo courtesy of Clarke Historical Library

Those catalogue kit houses were very inexpensive, by today's standards, but are no longer available. Sears, Roebuck and Company successfully sold pre-cut mail-order houses through their catalogs from through . Aladdin Ready Cut houses also successfully sold kits from . It is said that the Aladdin Company's houses in accounted for 2.37% of all housing starts in the United States. These houses provided much needed housing for workers during the industrial revolution. The Great Depression brought the end to the boom in demand for these catalogue homes, although Aladdin continued to produce catalogues until .  

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Photo courtesy of Barta Pictures.

The modern prefabricated kit homes came along in the mid-s post WWII. Lindal Cedar Homes, one of the companies at the forefront of this type of construction, began operations in delivering do-it-yourself (DIY) prefab exterior home material packages. Today they ship much more sophisticated homes locally and internationally, most often constructed by professional contractors.

The kit homes of today, in general, are beautiful, more diverse and way more sophisticated than they were in the earlier days.

Photo courtesy of Keisuke Maeda (President of Photoavant co.ltd.)

Components of  kit homes today are cut in factories in ideal controlled environments by professionals who build a multitude of houses each year. The prefabricated parts are shipped tightly packed and unlike modular components, they are not shipping "air" along with their parts, making it easier and less expensive to ship to further distances. Michael Harris of Lindal Cedar Homes, one of the companies at the forefront of kit house construction says the company can ship a 3,000-square-foot house on one truck. Their houses are  shipped from Washington State by train to the East coast and cargo ships to Japan and other parts of the world. Harris claims that with kit homes consumers have more flexibility and predictability than with other types of construction.

Photo courtesy of Trae Jaus

Another company producing kit houses is Zip Kit Homes, located in Utah and Idaho. Owner Chris Jaussi says he tried several other types of prefabrication before beginning to build kit homes; he found kit homes to be the most efficient way to build. He says that typical houses today are being built the same way they were 50 yers ago and haven't modernized their method of production as other industries have. He claims that in building his homes he creates 80% less waste than a typical site built house would. He sites the advantages of building in a controlled environment with more automated machinery, four times faster than site-building and with less waste as important factors in the success of his business.

Kit housing has come a long way from the early days when kits were sold in catalogues. I continue to believe that kit housing along with other forms of prefabrication are the future of home construction.

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