Okay, okay, it's a book that Dale and I published together, but I'd still like to mention it here.

It's has about 15 pages of front matter, giving an in depth history of Pacific Ready Cut Homes, a kit home company based in Los Angeles. This regional company sold about 40,000 kit homes between 1908 and 1940.

The balance of the book is a reprint of the 1925 Pacific Ready Cut Homes catalog - all 160 pages of it.

In the movie "Ray", there's a scene where Ray Charles is walking his new girlfriend home along a tree-lined street. They walk past a little bungalow with three windows flanking the front door. That's a Pacific Ready-Cut Kit Home.

A recent "Weekend Warrior" featured a Pacific Ready Cut Kit home but neither the producers nor the homeowner had any idea that their home was a KIT HOME from this California-based company. (And my screaming at the TV didn't help!) On camera, the homeowners went on and on about how they wished they knew more about the history of their little house!

I was going nutty listening to that!

In the late 1930s, Pacific Homes started building surfboards and eventually switched over entirely from kit homes to surfboards. It's an amazing part of California's history that's nearly been lost to the ages!






Rose Thornton

I own a Pacific Ready-Cut that my grandfather built in 1929. It is located on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, California. How could I find out more about it?
Coach

Well, first buy the book! Then ask your parents. My grandfather also built a Pacific-Ready Cut home. It's a spanish bungalow located on Alexander Street in Glendale. Anyway, even though she was only 5 at the time my Mom remembers going "downtown" to look at model homes with her parents. They asked her which one she liked and bought the one she picked out. (well, that's how she remembers it . She also remembers playing at the construction site after school.

Holy cow, I haven't been getting back to this site frequently enough. I LOVE the story about going to the models to check out the Pacific Ready Cut sales homes. Be still my quivering heart.

So much of this company is gone and forgotten, but this was a HUGE business with a mill that covered 24 acres in what is now Vernon, CA. And they sold 40,000 kit homes in and around California. By comparison, Sears sold about 70,000 homes in all 48 states.

I wish I knew what to do to get folks in California turned on to this company and its history. It really is a fascinating part of history!

Rose

Hey Rosemary,I have your book,and enjoy looking at it.When I get a chance will have to take my camera and the book around to Seguin and New Braunfels to see if I can find any of these houses.

There is an Aladdin Shadowlawn in New braunfels,
and in between Schertz and Cibolo ,I think the area is considered Cibolo there is a trailer park.However,There are some old bungalows there.It might have been a bungalow court at one time.Anyways there is a house there that looks like an Aladdin Home.I'm not sure of the name,but it goes back to WW1 era.
I need to print out the page from a catalog
that has the house in it,and investigate further so I can maybe send the info to Dale Wolicki.
In McQueeny there was a Sears Elmwood that was moved about 5 or 10 years ago,but to where I don't know.

If they sold,Sears,Aladdin and Harris Brothers homes in this part of Texas,why not a Pacific Ready Cut house?
I had a 1916 or so Harris Brother catalog at one time,and they had a letter from a gentleman in Boerne saying how nice his Harris home was.
While not kit houses,in Cibolo is a house from Fred T.Hodgson,and an E.W.Stillwell bungalow in New Braunfels.

Hello Hilda.

I work at Randolph and live east of Seguin... so many wonderful Craftsman houses in Seguin!

I see a couple of old houses that are still right on FM78 around Cibolo, but haven't looked behind the trailer park. Are there more back there?

KC

Hi Kirk,welcome to the forum.I think there maybe four or five there.On the right hand side as you drive past there in the direction of Cibolo,there were like about four others,but only one remains. I guess someone bought them and moved them,and now only i guess four or so remained. I'll have to ask around here at work about that area. Really not sure what was going on there.Whether someone moved those homes there years ago,or someone tried to start a bungalow court.The one on your right has i think green siding,the rest are painted blue and white.
So what do you do at Randolph?My late father was stationed there back in the 1970s and retired there in 1975 after 33 years in the Air Force.He worked out at ATC.

I have been to Seguin many times.Lots of nice bungalows there.Did you know that the Allstate Insurance place on Kingsbury?(it's near where you turn to gp to the library) was a bungalow from Ladies Home Journal? Well it is. They published a series of books of house plans,but didn't sell kit houses.
Lot's of nice bungalows too in New Braunfels.