Bay City, Michigan, is a community of about 35,000, situated on the Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron, near the base of the Thumb. Once a lumber and ship-building town, through the efforts and vision of two brothers, it became a center of the catalog housing industry, supporting three firms, Aladdin, Sterling and Lewis/Liberty.
Most bungalow enthusiasts are very familiar with Sears homes, where you could order your home through a catalog, and all the pieces arrived by train, then were trucked to the build site, where a contractor or even the homeowner assembled the house. Montgomery Ward also sold homes through catalogs. But there were also a few small companies whose main product line was kit homes, and three of those companies were in Bay City. Of the three, Aladdin was the first, biggest, most successful, and longest-lived.
Aladdin Homes was founded by two brothers in 1906, two years before Sears began offering houses by catalog. W.J. Sovereign got the idea of selling mail order houses by observing the successful kit-boat manufacturing companies operating in Bay City. Taking advantage of the plentiful lumber mills in the area, W.J. and O.E. Sovereign launched Aladdin Homes. Estimates of the number of homes sold by Aladdin range from somewhere over 50,000 and up to 100,000. Either way, they sold a significant number of homes for a small organization. Their success was due to innovations, both in home design and advertising. The standardization of lumber and hardware among several models made for well-built homes and lower prices. Their advertising was stylish and informative, and they used color liberally in the catalogs.
The success of Aladdin prompted the establishment of two more houses-by-mail companies: Lewis/Liberty began selling homes by catalog around 1914 with Sterling to follow a year or two later. This resulted in a very large influence on the architecture of Bay City. For instance, in the Aladdin catalog, they claimed that “Every house shown in the Aladdin catalog is erected in Bay City with two or three exceptions.”*
Recently, I took the short trip up there to see for myself. My first stop, at the Bay County Historical Museum on Washington Avenue in Bay City, allowed me to pick up a Residential Walking Tour, which not surprisingly featured many Aladdin, Lewis/Liberty and Sterling homes. Although these companies offered many types of architecture, I focused on the Arts and Crafts homes, bungalows and American Foursquares. Some of these homes are in the Center Avenue Neighborhood Residential District Historic District. Others are sprinkled around the city.
1) 706 North Farragut Street, The Malvern, manufactured by Lewis Homes. American Foursquare
2) 200 North Johnson, Berkshire or Rossley manufactured by Aladdin Homes. Arts and Crafts
3) Foursquare Row at Trumbull and 6th
4) 2163 Fifth, Bungalow
5) 2009 Center Avenue, American Foursquare, “Japanesque)
6) 2160 and 2162 Fourth Street, Aladdin Homes Pomona and Winthrop, Bungalows
7) 2155 Fourth, Windmere, Sterling Homes, American Foursquare
8) The Leona, 727 South Linwood Beach, Linwood, MI
Although some credit the mail order house industry with helping to popularize the bungalow across the country, mail order houses were offered in many styles, not just Arts and Crafts, and Bay City has many types of architecture represented. In addition, Bay City boasts some grand not-by-mail architecture, including some by noted Detroit architect, Albert Kahn, which is worth looking for if you visit the town.
Other things to see if you take a trip to Bay City include the downtown antiques market area, the beautiful bay, and the Leona, a Craftsman bungalow built in 1911 located in Linwood, just north of Bay City. The Leona is on the Register of Historic Places, and was for sale the day I went by.
Although its lumber mills, ship-building and mail order house industries are long gone, replaced by nearby automotive and chemical factories, Bay City takes a lot of pride in its architecture and historic preservation mindset. The beauty of the bay, river and architecture make it worth the trip. And, oh by the way, it’s also the birthplace of Madonna, but go for the architecture.
