I think the biggest problem with postwar housing is the attached garage. That throws absolutely everything off aesthetically.
PS: This appears to be a well-preserved example of the above kit house: http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/1a/fc/e1/1afce1e9d2ed... Very handsome building!
I dream of building a proper house, but I already live in a good one.
What sort of foundations are common in your region? (I.e., in New England, you have to dig at least X inches below the frost-line, hence why basements are common here-- however in Florida, you'll hit the water table if you try to go even half that far, which is why basements are nearly non-existent there). On the coasts (i.e., your intention is literally to build a home on sandy beach), most foundations are cylinder concrete piers and rebar that go down ~5-10 meters per cylinder (contributing largely to the expense, compared to an average home foundation. (After which, your framing is pretty much going to be standard 2x4 'stick-and-post' truss/stud/post build-outs, while some modern commercial structures opt for steel structure and aluminium framing in lieu of wood.) Do you guys still use the traditional Skiftesverk/Resvirke/Stavverk construction? Has the 'green house' (as in eco-friendly) trend that Germany's been pushing made it into other regions of Europe?
In the 70s there was a building boom of brick houses with live-in basements. You can't go around the outskirts of any town or large village without seeing estates of them.
However, modern house building has swung back towards wooden housing and I much prefer wood, and was costing a wooden house.
The foundations for wooden houses don't have to be very substantial relative to brick. A very modern way to do things is to lay a large 'raft' of thick polystyrene sheets and then pour a thin but reinforced concrete skin with underfloor heating buried in the top of it. You have thicker bits of concrete providing 'beams' around the edges and under any load-bearing walls etc.
Another approach is to have a 'creep space' under the house so the first floor is a bit higher than the ground.
Anyway, the walls are studwork - normal pine - with fir used for the outside panel, which runs vertically rather than horizontally, with thin strips covering the vertical edges. Very simple, very pretty, lots to paint. Very thick insulation etc.
I live in an old house that is 12" high 4" thick timring with vertical panel on front.
The materials - if you self build - are not very much at all! House building is not material cost, its time or paying for someone else's time cost.
There's a lot of buzz about green houses. Its particularly trendy to have tovtak again. The most striking difference between Swedish and English houses that the Swedish house is much warmer but much cheaper to build and run. Go figure!
A large, attached garage is such a pleasant amenity, I totally understand people wanting one - but there's no attractive way of just attaching one to the side of a house. It's essentially a warehouse out of proportion to the other rooms.
Perhaps ideally, build on a hill, such that views from most sides are of an attractive hilltop house, while from the garage view it is apparent that much of the house is built on top of the garage.
The house has a foundation that's 3 foot of mixed limestone chunks. The walls are made of 2x4s but the lumber is old growth trees --driving a nail into it is significantly harder than something you'd get at Home Depot.
The interior woodwork is the real gem. It makes the house special. 12 inch baseboards with a chair rail. Ornate headers on the doors and room transitions. I had to replace a few sections when moving some walls around and it cost a small fortune to get replacement pieces. I can't imagine doing it to a new build. I also can't imagine being excited about moving into a new place with trim that is made out of some composite material.
It's a simple, efficient design that I've appreciated more lately with these "McMansion" posts.
But then I moved to the suburbs to a boring 1980's ranch house a bit more than 2x the size and watched my heating & cooling bills drop to less than half what they were before. Charming as the Mpls house was, its HVAC costs were insane (since it was my first house, I had no frame of reference). There's a lot to be said for thick insulation and modern windows.
I live in an even larger house now, with a largely glass east-facing wall and my heating bills are about the same as the second house. Again, modern insulation & 12" thick walls makes a huge difference.
You can get insulation put in without doing so. I think it's called retro foam. Also I'm guessing your attic insulation wasn't top notch?
What's sad is that swaths of the worst of north Minneapolis are architecturally identical to my neighborhood, but they're worth half as much and the whole area is in deep decay.
1. It ignores the cost of land, or more specifically, building permits. Houses are fairly cheap to build; the right to build one in a desirable area is amazingly expensive.
2. It ignores the cost of labour, which added a fair bit then and a lot more now (cf. Baumol's cost disease).
3. It ignores changes in house size, quality, fixtures, whiteware, plumbing, insulation, glazing, efficiency, safety, fire risk, etc.
You could buy what that $47k got you, today, for quite a bit less (the cost of building materials has been headed down steadily). But...why would you want to?
Demonstrate this please. Without materials substitutions. Genuinely interested in the answers.
The cost of raw materials is very high as far as I know.
You can't get good hardwood, copper and so on without paying top dollar. Same goes for slate, trim.
I know that because I am actually attempting to build a tiny house in a traditional style for a little higher than 50k.
This would be a very valid comparison because it is;
1. Ignores cost of land. 2. Labour is free. 3. Doesn't ignore mod-cons.
I think the real difference is a normal person could have afforded the older house with a legal status!
But you can get many better materials, also. Wallboard is better than plaster. Steel framing in essential members is better than the best wood. Vapor barrier, waterproofing, insulated windows.
Things have changed. A direct comparison is hard. Changes in land use regulation are going to cost you a lot more than material changes.
I feel that most people building today optimize for the cheapest per sq ft, but if you are a builder owner and are a geek, you can really buy some amazing materials and employ some clever methods like advanced framing. You can construct a house with an energy bill of $100 a year if you want.
I think the future is in building smaller and smarter.
> Changes in land use regulation are going to cost you a lot more than material changes.
That's a fact. However I'm going for a tiny/small house in the countryside so I'll just dodge that bullet.
https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/landscaping-...
Has an extra bathroom, an extra 2-car garage. And modern electrical, and plumbing.
It's not pretty at all. But it's $7k cheaper ($40k), safe, and is to-code legal in most places.
https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/landscaping-...
Has 1.5 extra bathrooms, an extra 2-car garage, and modern electrical and plumbing. Probably a closer match to the style, at roughly that price ($46,600). Also to-code legal in most places.
- - -
Obviously we're never going to get an exact match in materials. In many cases, you wouldn't want to -- a lot of safety standards have improved since then. But "you can buy what $47k got you for quite a bit less" is a reasonably accurate claim.
If anything -- kit houses at the $47k price tag are probably much nicer today than the were back in the day. (more space, more amenities, safer, etc)
I'm guessing getting a Lot in a good zip code, and then having to match housing requirements from local zoning or the HOA is what drives prices. Rival goods basically.
I think one major hangup is finding the labour.
I have almost no construction skill, and also work a full time job. I can't take on a kit house myself without becoming homeless in the process. Any contractors I talk to are so busy they are booked out months (or years) in advance.
Another hangup seems to be the design. Any contractors I have found who are willing to build, only ever want to build/sell you a house they designed. And they all seem to exclusively want to design/build suburban homes on huge empty lots that (in my opinion) look like dated McMansions.
I would love to build a small (900sqft - 1400sqft) modern kit/prefab house on a small urban lot like this: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3920/14620317361_5766da68c1_z.... or http://prefabcosm.com/media/photos/2008/01/12/ecube1398.jpg
Every home builder I've ever talked to will only (exclusively) build huge (1800sqft - 3000+sqft) homes, on large empty suburban lots, that all look like this: http://www.mayberryhomes.com/CmImageDir/inventory_1695.JPG or https://nhs-dynamic.secure.footprint.net/Images/Homes/AllenE...
That sum also does not include general contractor overhead and profit of perhaps 12%, architect fees, building permit fees, structural engineering fees, planning review fees, school district permit tax, road impact fees, civil engineering fees, landscape architect fees, Title 24 consultant fees, soils engineering fees, etc.
If you were magically given a vacant lot for free in Palo Alto and wanted to build that house as shown with a basement, it would probably cost you about $2M in construction costs today. Again, that's assuming you got the land for free.
It's a one-story room with a 9' ceiling height. The structural engineer specified two massive Simpson Strong-Walls, side by side. There was barely any room for the window, which had to be askew as a result. A local architect tells me the requirements were far less onerous even a decade ago.
Also foundation requirements have increased as well. You may be on a flat lot with no history of problems based on a soils analysis, but end up having to drill piers anyway. Just in case. Your municipality wants them. Which will likely increase foundation costs by tens of thousands of dollars--so much for affordable SF bay area housing!
I know one fellow building a new home on the SF peninsula who spent $500,000 to pour a roughly 1,000 sq. ft basement. (Small lot, not much outdoor space, so he was determined to have a place for his kids to play in.)
I was talking to a lady /u/sixup on reddit about her (excellent) Tiny House in Vancouver. She was thinking of getting these blocks of rubber inter-dispersed with thin plates of steel. This would go under her house and hold it upright. Earthquakes wouldn't do anything to such a house, and it's not expensive. So if you're worried about that and can lift your house, I'd do it.
Why don't we see $150k new builds with this level of fractal detail and material quality then? Or at $500k?
Yes, wiring costs money, but come on.
I think you're hugely underestimating the impact of labour, land/permits, and house size. People with $500k to spend on a house don't want a 1250 foot 1 bathroom house in an undesirable neighborhood, no matter how much "fractal detail" it may have, but if they did they could build one.
Like...it's not rocket science. The materials are all things which are still being made, and they're not appreciably more expensive now than in 1921. It's not some lost secret of the ancients. It's just not something people do, because it's a moderately expensive way to get a fairly crappy house unless you have pretty unique tastes.
But you totally can do it. That's why places like this exist: https://www.thehousedesigners.com
Labor is typically about the cost of the materials. So double the cost again. $188k
A rule of thumb is the house should cost about 3x what the lot you build on does. Obviously this varies wildly, but let's use it for an example, because it gets us to a nice round number of 250k.
I just don't see new builds in that price range anywhere even approaching the quality and aesthetics of this house. That's not to say that in rust-belt towns you can't buy old homes of a similar era for around that cost (or much less, if the economy has tanked, e.g. detroit) but new builds in that price range are gonna be stucco sh*t boxes.
When I say "fractal detail" I mean that the house has visual interest at different scales: the eaves are interesting up close, at five feet, at fifty feet, etc. It's detailing (often disparaged, and sometimes fairly, as ornament) that requires a level of care and craftsmanship to execute far out of proportion to, say, slapping up a long stucco wall with some flashing.
I suppose I'm not going to convince anyone of much, but I think that many of the excuses for the atrociousness of modern buildings are intellectually lazy.
You obviously don't live in California.
;-)
Land is the only one of those that has really skyrocketed in price. That was driven by politics.
A quick Google search for double-wide housing brings up this guy for $43k: http://www.montysheavybuilthomes.com/index.php?pageID=16284_...
You couldn't touch that today, as evidence by the fact that most new builds under $500k aren't even remotely comparable.
Look beyond crowded cities and $400k will buy you an amazing house. The cost is mainly in the land.
$527k, 758 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/611-Campbell-Ave-San-Franc...
$489k, 996 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/126-Dolphin-Ct-San-Francis...
$588k, 1112 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1101-Fitzgerald-Ave-San-Fr...
$599k, 1284 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8831-Nestle-Ave-Northridge...
And contrast:
$510k, 4500 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15320-Swan-Ct-Gulfport-MS-...
$500k, 5225 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4534-S-162nd-Ave-Omaha-NE-...
$500k, 8200 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4417-S-Holmes-Ave-Idaho-Fa...
$565k, 5000 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1725-Burns-St-Detroit-MI-4...
The most telling in the prices you posted is that 758 sq. ft. house for 527k:
> Last sold: Jan 1973 for $25,000
That's $135,939.19 inflation adjusted to 2016 dollars. Where'd the remaining $390k of value come from (assuming house is in same relative shape.)
Whether this was actually "bad" or not depends on whether you think it was better to keep returning veterans in crowded, archaic housing, or whether it was better to let them have a modern house (with modern wiring, plumbing, etc.) that doesn't conform to your personal taste in the year 2016.
Note also that your 1921 Sears house doesn't include electrical wiring, plumbing, or heating.
But this is the problem, I suppose. It's obvious that the fractal complexity, materials, beauty and craftsmanship of older buildings is vastly superior to what even rich folks can afford today, but we have to sit around and argue about taste and air conditioning, rather than figure out what the hell happened.
I personally like having more than one set of clothes to wear. I also like air conditioning when I'm in a hot climate and central heat in a cold one. Electricity and running water are also nice.
But this house was sold to average humans, in contrast to Savile Row suits.
I think we need to embrace the healing power of "and" here: the modern amenities and size are great, but we've lost something very significant in the materials and aesthetic quality (regardless of taste, I have seen well done houses in nearly every style save brutalism) far out of proportion to what we pay for housing.
I don't think so. From some not-too-reliable numbers I found in Google (if you have better ones, feel free), the median house price in 1925 was $6,000. This Sears house cost almost 60% of that just for materials. No land, labor, mechanical...
If we apply your 4x adjustment, the Sears house cost about $14,000 as built. That's more than twice the median house price of the day.
This was a house for wealthy people.
And not even all of them: "Price does not include cement, brick, or plaster"
land
permits
foundation
insulation (though I live in Canada)
electrical
plumbing
heating
cooling
kitchen
bathroom
changing your mind about something after it's already done (charge extra for that)
On the bright side you can knock off the price of the sash weights, and probably "building paper"
(unless that means they pay the price to have the blueprints signed off by an engineer).
Even here in California we have insulation. It's just a lot cheaper than where you are because it doesn't have to be all that good.
Let us double it again for Nest thermostats and turret mounted gatling guns and you are still under 400k.
Something happened.
1,400 sqft -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/263-W-Ramsey-St-Pembina-ND...
750 sqft -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/705-W-Douglas-St-New-Dougl...
1,718 sqft -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5-Allen-Ct-Stewartstown-NH...
(the median price of new homes sales is about/under $300,000 https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/uspricemon.pdf )
4x the cost of your Sears house is $13,964 (also in their dollars).
The buyers preferred a house that they could afford to one they couldn't. Simple as that.
The material costs are not directly comparable to modern materials of similar quality and the HVAC and electricals (and probably plumbing) would be lacking.
Still, you could build a house like that for probably 65-85k$ in material (including concrete for foundation, excluding real bricks) depending on where you are in the US (or Canada.) I'm in Canada so we need a bit more insulation then you can get away with in some part of the US.
That material cost does not include the cost of the lot, the cost of utility installation, the road, sewers and so on (those are usually included in builder's prices in new subdivisions) and it doesn't include labor.
By which point you're probably looking at 125-250k$ minimum. The two biggest variables being land costs and labor. If the house was factory built for assembly onsite (closer to that sears house) like "modular homes" than labor will be much cheaper but so will be the overall finishing level, something like this: http://www.kenthomes.com/kent-homes-browse-homes-two-storey-...
I've seen urban tax assessments (in Montreal) where the house was practically worthless compared to the land value. My own tax assessment puts the bare lot as over 50% of the value.
The only real "problem" is the small size of a bungalow's reduced upper floor. People obviously used to spend less time in their bedrooms and more downstairs together or outside.
Which I guess tells you something.
You can buy a LOT more house these days relative to annual incomes mostly because comparative incomes across the board have risen substantially, and interest rates are so much lower. That said, the cost of the lot and the labor would've been cheaper to finish the house back then so that's something!
[1]http://www.searshomes.org/index.php/tag/saratoga-sears-house... [2]http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/his/e_prices1.htm
That's a very nice looking house, but the reason it's very nice is it has a lot of low-materials high-labor details people don't want to pay for when they're not doing the work.
It does seem like wood is awfully expensive these days, though.
Alot of construction now is driven by builder spec homes. It's too expensive for "working rich" people to have an architect design. So you have design-build from big homebuilders, who spec houses as cheaply as possible, then nickel and dime you for upgrades.
My cousin bought a house that's probably a 8 on this scale, but it had no "options"... everything inside was the cheapest junk. The chandelier in the dining room of this home (which originally sold for $750k in a cheap market) cost $50 at Home Depot.
Sure, it's all stuff we can replace, but it still irks me.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/05/...
>from 1890 to through 1980, real home prices actually declined by about 10%.
That example would be, what, $25/sq ft?
You're not crazy. Houses really were more affordable for your grandparents. The same with mine.
Today for I or you to purchase the same thing would cost many multiples. At lowest I'd say 150k, but most likely 350 and in what the middle class today euphemistically call a "good school distinct" it would be about over a million dollars.
So many educated people in 'modern days' have beliefs about the present and past which are in complete opposition to the facts.
> Something very bad happened in architecture around world war 2.
Thank you for noticing. The answer is literally a conspiracy against traditional building. I won't 'go on'. I'll demonstrate with images.
Here I'll insert a former comment I made related to this subject.
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3641/3546348607_d60d612554_z.j...
The first thought that struck me when I saw it was "that is a visual expression of Orwellian thought".
Deep down a majority of people prefer to live in houses that look like this:
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/2e/40/a4/2e40a4bf4e33...
http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/74/71/2747107_896ab24...
Do you remember the Shire in the Lord of the Rings? That is a synopsis of what people feel when they think of 'home'. Honest, humble but well crafted dwellings affordable by the average hobbit. As master Bilbo is keen to tell us:
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
Brutalism is quite obviously something that came out of Minas Morghul.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/enbLZaUyr3s/maxresdefault.jpg
It is an architectural anti-thesis.
Mr Wtbob on HN made the most apropos remark that:
There is little more care for the inhabitants inside than there is for the ants, the ivy, the birds, the earthworms which could live on & around a homier structure. A Brutalist building spares no more thought for its inhabitants than does an abbatoir for those who enter its confines: they are a necessary nuisance, but mustn't be permitted to intrude upon the happiness of the architect anymore than absolutely required.
Brutalism is a kind of totalitarianism of architecture, a demand that those who build, those who inhabit and those who maintain must constantly bend their wills to the will of the Great Man (the architect), bend without love, without understanding, without hope, without fear, without joy, just mute, abject obedience to a cold and uncaring plan.
No thanks. Give me ivy, give me bricks, give me marble, give me dirt and grass and trees; give me men and women and children; give me sheep and dogs and horses; give me colours and light and ornament; give me emotion and delight; give me, in short, life.
It's clear to internaut and probably wtbob, that so called modern architecture is actually an attempt to erase the past, which is all the more amazing because all the users want traditional architecture to be built.
When all the end users want one thing, and most of the designers are wanting another thing we have to seriously ask what is doing on.
Of course it's not just architecture, it's in the art world too and the music world.
Nothing remarkable has come out of those for many decades now. The public is unable to name a 'masterwork' from those fields of endeavor.
I thought it would be interesting to see what $1,000,000 buys, and it looks like with that kind of money you just barely squeak over the pauper line...
6,739 sqft -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3209-S-Nicann-Ct-Sioux-Fal...
5,798 sqft (only a 14 acre lot) -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/70-Twin-Arrow-Dr-Sandia-Pa...
9,042 sqft (only 8 bathrooms) -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8954-W-51st-St-Tulsa-OK-74...
3,300 sqft (the boat house looks rather small) -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/64-Clairvaux-Dr-Scottsboro...
9,748 sqft -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2100-Atwood-Dr-Anchorage-A...
3,386 sqft -- (cramped Abraham Lincoln style log home, but at least you get 40 acres) -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/31-Willow-Creek-Rd-Cody-WY...
Betjeman is also the person responsible for saving the splendid, extravagant Gothic station at St Pancras: http://www.ontheluce.com/2011/12/06/london-st-pancras-statio...
Some books on the topic that I have read, if you haven't are:
https://www.amazon.com/Bauhaus-Our-House-Tom-Wolfe/dp/031242...
https://www.amazon.com/Old-Way-Seeing-Architecture-Magic/dp/...
https://www.amazon.com/Geography-Nowhere-Americas-Man-Made-L...
A funny side story: I realized I was some sort of reactionary my freshman year at Berkeley, when I was standing in the memorial glade, swinging my gaze back and forth between Doe Memorial Library and Evans Hall.
Most of the examples I can find online of Brutalist homes are actual mansions, however, so it's hard to compare apples to apples.
The average new home size in the 70's (earliest census data) was somewhere around 1500 sq/ft.
Now the average is somewhere around 2,500 square feet with a smaller family size.
Yes, if you buy more house it will be more expensive.
The price per square foot has remained relatively stable.
http://www.aei.org/publication/todays-new-homes-are-1000-squ...
"From 1890 -- just three decades after the Civil War -- through 2012, home prices adjusted for inflation literally went nowhere. Not a single dime of real growth."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/05/...
RE: Sears - A friend of mine bought a fixer-upper circa 2008 while getting his Pharm.D. in San Diego. He shopped around for the best deal and ultimately settled with king-of-MDF IKEA to redo his whole kitchen. 10 grand later, he had a functional, aesthetically consistent (albeit somewhat bland) remodel complete without having to go through every single supplier/distributor to select 'which faucet will go well with this lighting enclosure'.
Sears re-branded everything they bought. They didn't manufacture any of their tools (though they did stand behind them with a fantastic warranty). I'm sure it's easy for us to say "things were so great back in the day!". Things were a bit better constructed domestically, but they were a lot more expensive too. I've talked to a lot of old-timers because I'm a bit of a history nerd - when they went down to Sears and bought a lathe (which was usually a re-branded Logan) this was a big purchase for them. Tools were expensive both to manufacture and buy, so the extra 10% went into each unit to ensure that lathe was going to turn your stock true.
Now we can go to Home Depot and buy a $50 drill (that Ryobi is just like your proverbial McMansion - built for a specific grade of consumer) because consumers don't really want/have the need to buy an industrial quality Hilti or Fein. (I happily buy beat up pre-TTI Milwaukee NiCad drills off eBay for ~60 which I consider to be prosumer/almost-but-not-quite-contractor-grade equipment, throw new carbon brushes in there, convert them to Li-ion with Sanyo or Panasonic greens and have a tool I know is going to last ~10 years (got 3 years out of this beater so far, we'll have to wait another 7 to see)).
\/\/ RE: On par with McMansions - that was my whole point. Those pre-fabs get a bad rap by the McMansion owners but are constructed just as well if not better. My comment was one on society -- the supply for McMansions would not exist if there wasn't a demand for it. The rampant number of McMansions constructed as a result of consumer demand (and easy credit, but that's a whole different topic) is a reflection of the 'disposable unit' mentality of the consumer on the whole. Much like people will buy a pretty crappy Ryobi $50 because they're not focused on longevity of their unit -- though I'll be the first one to admit that analogy is somewhat flawed because not everyone needs industrial quality tooling.
I'm just saying that Harbor Freight and Walmart stay in business for a reason. Furniture, art, and hell, rugs[1] used to be passed down as heirlooms because guess what, that old-growth oak table was made by a craftsman who charged the equivalent tens of thousands of dollars for it. It's no surprise that your $200 Ikea dining set complete with 4 chairs isn't as stable after you tore it down to move to your new apartment. The holding-torque of a fastener decreases upon re-assembly in material like MDF and particle board? Who knew..
[1] Remember in The Godfather where the guy was like "do you want a rug?" "of course! but who can afford a rug!" Before the era of cheap imports, shipping containers, being able to injection mold plastic widgets for pennies, and mass-production, there was a premium on production per unit, so items had a longer shelf-life that often spanned generations.
"on par with McMansions" is not good. One of the big criticisms of McMansions is the build quality is very poor and the materials used are very, very cheap. For example, from the same site, http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/149128564511/mclean-virgin...
>Barely ten years old, and this house has already sustained all kinds of damage due to poor construction quality. It’s extremely sad when you think about what could’ve been built in place of this house, which wasn’t even built to last ten more years. A house with a life expectancy under a hundred years is a sad house indeed.
https://oklahomahousesbymail.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/sea...
What's crazy is the price: $47,085.20 in todays dollars. This is with all finishing materials (including stained glass) & delivered (no cement or bricks).
It's an amazing house, and any old schlub could order it from good ol' Sears.
Something very bad happened in architecture around world war 2.