Sears Catalog Homes in Santa Barbara?

Many people are familiar with the homes that were shown in old Sears/Roebuck catalogs and shipped in pieces, but as far as I know, none of these homes exist in Santa Barbara. We do, however, have more than 100 similar local catalog homes that were produced by a Los Angeles company: Pacific Ready-Cut Homes.

Homes offered by catalog companies — Sears and other companies around the United States — began at about the same time that Henry Ford started producing cars on assembly lines. In some ways, these developments were related. Cars allowed people to move from apartments in city centers to neighborhoods where they could own their own home. Catalog companies owned lumber yards with machines that could cut lumber much faster than contractors in the years before there were many power tools.

Communities encouraged homeownership. Homeowners were believed to be better citizens than renters. In 1925, discussing what was called the Better Homes in America movement, Mrs. John D. Sherman, president general of the Federation of Women’s Clubs, wrote in the local paper, “The sense of ownership is the important thing to me in a home. To know that the things about me and the four walls that I live in are really my own, is one of the greatest joys home offers. For that reason, I believe that when there is an opportunity for a family to set up for itself in its own home, it should do so as long as financial considerations are favorable to such a step.

“The satisfaction that arises from living in your own home, in your own way, has an intangible effect upon the character of the people experiencing it. It gives people pride, encourages thrift and industry, and makes for better American citizens. There is nothing to take the place of the sense of ownership of a particular piece of land, and the house in which you live. It ties you to America and to the country more than anything else that I know” (Santa Barbara Morning Press, July 10, 1925).

Another factor in the movement to move people into homeownership was the increase in banks making loans to potential homeowners. Here’s some info from the Santa Barbara Home Planning Company: “It isn’t necessary that you have all the money to pay cash for homes — a small payment down and balance in monthly installments is the plan under which the majority of present-day homeowners acquired homes. Your monthly payments will not exceed the amount of money you are now paying for rent, so there is no good reason why you should not begin applying rent money towards buying a home of your own” (Santa Barbara Morning Press, December 2, 1923).

One more development that led to catalog homes here in Santa Barbara is the popularity of radios. As more people bought radios, they bought fewer records, so a local music store owner switched from selling music to selling catalog homes. The photos included here show a couple of attractive Tudor Revival–style homes from the Pacific Ready-Cut catalog that were built in 1924 by Ralph H. Paulin, former music store owner. As proof of his pride in these homes, he lived in one himself. Both of these homes were featured in the local paper in 1924.

I’d like to write about more catalog homes in future columns. If you have a catalog home, please contact me via my website.

Please do not disturb the residents of these homes.

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Betsy J. Green is a Santa Barbara historian and author of Discovering the History of Your House and Your Neighborhood, Santa Monica Press, 2002. Her website is betsyjgreen.com.