A neighbor has claimed that Hatcher House was a Sears kit, and as a builder, George Hatcher would have been an ideal customer. But it’s difficult to authenticate Sears homes built during this era. Sears lumber was not stamped with numbers, as it was in the 1920’s and walls were still plaster and lathe, not the later Goodwall sheet plaster.
The Hatcher’s deed was for the land only, and their Dec. 1914 mortgage came from the Rensselaer County Bank, rather than from Sears. (The mortgage seems to predate the house, specifying that any buildings erected should be 15 feet from the road.) Rensselaer has no building permits for this neighborhood in this era, so no documentation can verify this was a Sears home.
It is very interesting to see the resemblance between Sears No. 124 and Keith's Model 1070, which was first publicized 7 years earlier. The upstairs bedrooms are a mirror match to the Sears plan, and most of the rooms match the Sears dimensions more closely than the Keith's, although floor plans from both sources varied between earlier and later publications.
According to Rosemary Thornton, an expert on Sears catalog homes, Sears worked with outside architects during the early years, to obtain popular home designs. Keith's plans already included a detailed bill of materials, and would have been easy to adapt into a kit. So far I've found no evidence that Sears worked with Keith's, or derived their plan from his. Research continues...
