Where do I begin? I have a Plan . . .

I think when most people start blogs like this they start with their own home or a house close to their hearts. I am no different.

The house on Sheridan Drive in 2015 (photo by Jerome Mullane)

This house is special. Built around 1927, it was the only house on the block until about 1938. In later years (and still today) it rises like a Colonial Revival Venus from a sea of 1950s ranch houses.

Aerial photo of the Great Motorway System showing the section of Sheridan Drive between Elmwood Ave. and Delaware Ave. House is marked with a yellow arrow. 1927.

Sheridan Drive west of Delaware Ave. House is marked in the yellow square. 1927.

Top: Anna and Charles V. Busch, original owners. They lived there from 1927 to about 1932. They went bankrupt, the house went to bank ownership and they ended up living in a small house on the block behind, School Rd (now School St).

The house in the mid-1950s. The roof was still very terracotta and the shutters and front door were painted aqua. It looked like the Howard Johnson's that was diagonally across the street. 

I had heard from various sources that it was a Sears house. I knew what that meant as I was interested in mail-order, or kit-houses since my sister moved into a small bungalow in Tulsa, OK in 1988.  I now began my research in earnest and it was at this point that I started "collecting" mail order houses. I searched various blogs and websites, joined a Facebook group or two, found some wonderful, similar houses but nothing that really fit the profile of the house. 

Then someone in one of the groups forwarded me a page from a 1927 William A. Radford catalog, Build a Home First - Artistic Homes. William A Radford offered plan book houses. Plan books differed from mail-order, or kit homes because you could only purchase the blueprints and were on your own for the materials and labor whereas with kit homes, well you ordered the house and  received the whole kit and caboodle down to the screws and nails.

From William A Radford's 1927 Build a Home First (Artistic Homes)

This was the first house that truly resembled The House. I started searching William A. Radford materials.

During an internet search, I came across Keith's Magazine on Homebuilding and this in the March 1921 issue:

Keith's Magazine of Home building, March 1921 page 86 (link to Google Books)

I had a house and a name, Lawrence A. Barnard - an architect out of New York City and Westchester. This led to the July 1919 issue of William A. Radford's trade magazine American Builder and, of all things, Creo-Dipt Co. Inc., a local Western New York company located in North Tonawanda, NY (Niagara County). Creo-Dipt specialized in creosote treated shingles and roofing. (They also invented a faux thatched roof.)

July 1919 American Builder magazine page 59 (link to Google Books)

Creo-Dipt advertisement

Creo-Dipt Stained Shingle Homes catalog (link to archive.org)
I have found many of the actual homes in this catalog. One home is in North Tonawanda, NY. 

I am now armed with the architect, the owner of the house and the city and state where the house was located. Now I had to find it! I spent weeks and then months doing census searches, newspaper searches, Google flyovers, and randomly Google driving down blocks that had houses with similar footprints to the Tonawanda house. I finally found it "driving" down one block and spying a corner of the sun room around the corner. 920 Highland Ave, Pelham Manor, NY

920 Highland Ave, Pelham Manor, NY

The House in Tonawanda isn't exactly like the original Pelham Manor house. The foot print is slightly different and the Tonawanda house has two sets of balconies where the Pelham Manor house has only one . The original house also has an enclosed portico and the layout inside is slightly different. Both houses lost their original shingles to vinyl and the Pelham Manor house also lost all of the decorative rafter tails - an element that makes the house so special. They also added an extra room off the kitchen (made into an open plan) because the sun room is too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter to use. The Tonawanda house still has the original French tile roof.