The story ran two weeks ago- April 17.

“Sears Catalog Homes (sold as Sears Modern Homes) were ready-to-assemble houses sold through mail order by Sears Roebuck and Company…Over 70,000 of these were sold in North America between 1908 and 1940. Shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included all the materials needed to build an exceptionally sturdy and well-designed house… Sears began offering financing plans in the 1920s. However, the company experienced steadily rising payment defaults throughout the Great Depression, resulting in increasing strain for the catalog house program…. The mortgage portion of the program was discontinued in 1934; the entire program ceased altogether in 1940.”
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Catalog_Home

Old home leveled
By Forrest Adams

An old home that was once the residence of the late Elmer Kelm, a founder of the state’s Democrat-Farm-Labor Party and Chanhassen’s village treasurer in 1923, was demolished last week.

Built in the early 1930s, it was a Sears Catalogue Home, according to Jack Atkins from the Chanhassen Historical Society. More than 70,000 catalogue homes were assembled across the continent between 1908 and 1940.

However, the home that once provided shelter for the 1928 Carver County Democratic Chairman who delivered Chanhassen for Al Smith, versus Herbert Hoover (Chanhassen, a centennial history, 134) fell into disrepair. It sat vacant for at least eight years on land that St. Hubert’s purchased in 2000.

St. Hubert’s Parish Administrator Mary Overby said church leaders finally decided the home had no more purpose. At least Old St. Hubert’s Church is on the national historic register, she said. The old home would simply have cost the parish too much money if they wanted to fix it to be useable.

The ground where it once sat will more than likely eventually be used for burial plots. Overby said somebody from the church contacted Sears several years ago to inquire if that organization was interested in purchasing and preserving the house but didn’t find much interest.