More than a century has passed since the Harris Brothers Company first offered a kit house which today is both admired and disparaged. Known variously over the years as Design No. 6, No. K-2013, and No. J-6, the kit house had a facade which continues to evoke a wide range of emotions. Was it the result of a clever marketing strategy or merely a reflection of its time?
As evidenced by both the stated number of purchases and the physical number of surviving houses , the J-6 kit house by the Harris Brothers Company was a big hit across the nation. Appearing in early 20th century Harris Brothers catalogs, the house ceased to be offered by 1920 or thereafter. Its distinctive corner turret was a Victorian-era holdout, and a bit old-fashioned even when it debuted. Its gabled front was similarly behind the times, but comfortably familiar. The Colonial Revival detailing of the front porch was similarly safe in contrast to the concurrently popular, but edgier, Craftsman and Prairie style designs.
It’s no surprise that the house appears to have been wildly popular in small towns and rural areas throughout the Midwest; the center section of the country has long been noted as a region in which changes in style or fashion take longer to be embraced. As a composition, the house flaunted a little bit of Queen Anne pretension while still maintaining a conservative air – the perfect compromise for prevailing tastes in the center of the nation. The slightly old-fashioned form paired with a stylishly dignified porch made it a winner in areas which were slow to keep up with the times. I can’t help but wonder if the house was not designed to appeal to the sensibilities of Midwesterners just as the center section of the country experienced rapid growth. Personally, I think it was brilliant and calculated marketing strategy.
A few rural examples of surviving houses follow period catalog images:
An early promotion for the kit house.
House Design No. 6
The same house, now identified as Harris Home No.K-2013.
And now, some surviving examples in the heart of “flyover country”:
Franklin, Nebraska (image courtesy Google Street View).
Drastically altered (and with additions), but still recognizable. Atwood, Kansas.
Phillipsburg, Kansas.
Double Feature! Stockton, Kansas (image courtesy Google Street View).
Good god that is awful.
Not only is it incredibly awkward, it’s completely counter intuitive when it comes to shedding rain and snow… who thought this was an acceptable design??
Yes – I agree with you that it is awkward. I doubt that anyone involved thought it acceptable as a refined architectural compostition… it was more likely understood to be calculated to generate sales! I agree that the house makes little sense from an aesthetic point of view. However, it makes a good deal of sense from an early 20th-century marketing point of view – it is a little bit of this and a little bit of that… a house which has something for everyone! Apparently the strategy worked; these houses are literally everywhere in flyover country. I do appreciate your heart-felt response!
I feel like if I had one of these I’d want to alter that stubby roofline. Which means I should maybe just never buy one of these.
Stubby! The perfect description. But despite their clumsiness, I’m still charmed by them. A true Midwesterner to the core!
Without the awkward turret, it would be a pretty standard aughts/teens midwest home. The interior layout could easily be fit in a foursquare, craftsman, or even a simplified late-victorian or colonial-revival form. The turret is just a mess.
Here’s what I would picture the home looking like without the turret. Simple, but attractive.
https://www.redfin.com/IL/Aurora/210-Oak-Ave-60506/home/16947096
PS, I find it interesting that the one ad mentions the “small room in the rear” that “could be used as a bathroom”. What’s the date for that one? If it was in the teens, that would be further evidence this model was targeted to the rural and small-town midwest, where indoor plumbing wasn’t yet standard.
It’s surprising how many rural homes didn’t have indoor plumbing and electricity even up into the 1930s. I forget the actual statistic, but I remember it being surprisingly high.
Good point! The date for the copy in question is 1918. The optional bathroom is the best evidence that the J-6 was designed to appeal to rural customers… thank you for pointing that out (it went right over my head when I read the catalog!). The house in Aurora looks sharp.
I ran across that home when we were shopping for houses here to move back to Illinois. That style is represented in a number of houses here in Aurora, whereas in Omaha, I did not see a single example. It seems to be otherwise have coexisted with Foursquares, which are ubiquitous here too.
It’s interesting to see the difference in regional tastes, and I enjoy your posts on the midwestern trends and tastes. I find a lot of of the transition-era homes at the turn of the century that tastefully blended the waning Victorian styles with Colonial Revival and rising Prairie style are very attractive. The examples I like best are generally applied to a Foursquare form, perhaps enlarged with a wing or other subtle asymmetry. Since the Foursquare form (in my mind, anyway) is pretty generic stylistically, I think it accepts a number of specific styles better than say a Queen Anne form, which is strongly tied to the ornamentation and cohesive package. I’d qualify that to say Foursquares accept styles that aren’t otherwise strongly attached to a particular form. For instance, a Foursquare decorated in Tudor Revival ornamentation would look atrocious!
If you haven’t gathered, I have a special affinity for Foursquares. It’s not my fantasy house by any means, but I’m drawn to them being a handsome home that was very practical and affordable for the middle class. The fact that we lived in and restored one for 7 years probably makes me a little biased too, lol.
Our new house in Illinois, however, is totally off in another world (almost literally, it being an Italian Renaissance Revival): https://www.redfin.com/IL/Aurora/417-Wilder-St-60506/home/16947140
I’m still in the process of learning enough about the style to guide my decisions in restoration. It’s such an uncommon style, particularly in the midwest, it’s hard to find good examples of what the original light fixtures, hardware, etc would have looked like (unlike googling “Craftsman Home Interior” or something and coming up with a plethora of authentic photos, period advertisements, etc).
Thanks for sharing the new house… looks great! The garage is amazing. The few Italian Renaissance Revival houses I’ve seen which still retained original lighting fixtures seemed to have either fixtures that were typical of the period (not specifically themed) or fixtures which had a Spanish vibe to them. You might consult with Ross who sells period lighting and knows a lot about it. I wish the realtor had taken better interior photos… the corbels in the 5th photo suggest an interesting ceiling but we’re just teased. Have fun with your restoration – I know the house is in capable hands.
Check out the lighting in this Italian Renaissance Revival house posted on Old House Dreams!
https://www.oldhousedreams.com/2017/04/17/1925-italian-renaissance-howey-in-the-hills-fl/
Hey, Eric! I enjoyed your post.
I think you’re right about this house’s popularity in “flyover” areas. Since Harris Brothers was based in Chicago, we typically see many of their models in Chicago and its suburbs. But not the J-6. I’ve seen one in the immediate Chicago area, and Harris claims to have sold over a thousand (possibly a couple thousand). I bet you’re going to find a lot more…
Thanks, Lara! I hope I find more… I’m going on a road trip across Kansas in a few days, and taking my camera along!
Fascinating to read about these homes and to know a number of them are still around. My great grandfather, S.H. Harris, Sr., was one of the four founding Harris Brothers. After the popularity of kit homes faded, the company concentrated on garage building and window manufacturing, becoming the Harris-Crestline Company of Chicago and Wausau, WI.
Thanks for the information about Harris-Crestline! So many of the Harris Brothers houses survive today because they were of such good quality to start with… I’ll post others when I run across them.
I recently ran across a J-6 in real life while driving through Wisconsin. It’s had vinyl siding and a metal roof, as well as some other alterations, but the awkward turret is unmistakable!
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.1724176,-89.253388,3a,75y,92.59h,85.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sKRlJv5AJzAqTHYDdKgrlbQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
The awning roof around the front doesn’t match the drawings you have, but the porch is missing as well. It’s hard to say if it was built this way, or if the original porch was removed and the small awning roof added to replace it. If so, I have to say it looks better than the complete porch-ectomies I too often see. Houses designed with porches rarely look as good without them.
Great find! Judging by the tree near the front door, I’d say the porch came off at least 40 years ago. The wrap-around replacement roof has a distinct mansardesque feel to it… I could easily believe that the house was altered in the 70’s! And yes; this looks much better than a total porchectomy… the close proximity of the turret to the two bay windows on the J-6 demands some sort of visual separation and this fits the bill. Thanks for sharing this with us!
I happened to run across this ad for the Sears “Modern Home No. 167”. Looks like a close copy of the J-6, don’t you think?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/SearsHome167.jpg
Definitely! Sears no doubt noticed that the J-6 was a big seller and flat out copied it. But actually, I think, they improved it. By taking the side bay window in the living room and moving it back to the dining room they made the house look a little less awkward and gave the dining room a little more elbow room. And they removed the quirky gables from the tower roof. However, their skinny brackets under the turret aren’t really an asset; that area is still awkward. It’s fun to see just how commonplace the blatant the theft of ideas was back then… just like today! Thanks for sharing!
I agree, it is a significant improvement!
I agree about the puny brackets. It needs either much more substantial brackets, or a convex tin bottom like commonly used on commerical building turrets. Continuing it down through the first floor to the foundation would also look great, and give the parlor a nice little windowed corner, but I can see how they terminated it to keep the basement foundation square and economical.
I own a what appears to be a J-16 Harris home, without the turret. My grandparents bought it in 1927. It was built in 1910, after a J-6 was built earlier in that year, a few blocks away in Westminster, Colorado. Until recently, I had thought both homes to be Sears, but further research certainly lean to them being Harris homes. The J-16 model (which I just found out about today as being available) is 2′ longer and wider, each room, and has a bay window off the dining room, instead of a side bay off the living room. I knew that our house had these larger dimensions, from the Sears and Harris floor plans, so it was revealing to read about the J-16. It appears that a builder could change or add features during construction. It looks like Sears, Wards and Harris all used variations of this design, Sears calling it a Maytown, and it appears in the Sears Home Catalog. This next site fills in some of the gaps: https://weelunk.com/live-sears-house-sure/
The inside floor plan served our family well, and has stood the test of time, with much preventative care given. Our local Historical Society describes it’s architecture as “Folk Vernacular”. I think the second floor “turret” adds a lot of class to the home down the street, and both homes are linked to a nearby campus originally built as Westminster University, in the late 1800’s, and partially designed by New York architect Stanford White. Our home was built of the then Dean of the University, and the other home down the street was, in part, for boarding some students, some with health problems.
I have restored all but one of the rooms of our house, and a small pantry. The other rooms have been restored as near to original as possible. I located new, original cedar siding from a second hand lumber yard for necessary repairs. The floors appear to be Douglas Fir, and I sanded and refinished the living and dining rooms, hall and master bedroom, so far. It has certainly been a labor of love.
That’s fascinating! I’ve never actually seen a J-16 before. Was the elimination of the turret the result of a customized order or was it a later alteration? I have great admiration for anyone who restores these historic survivors; thanks for saving an important part of our collective past.
Your local historical society is missing the boat with its use of the word “vernacular” in its description; many historians use that as a default term when they don’t know how else to describe a structure. Clearly, a stylistically ambiguous house which was marketed and built all across the nation can not be described as typical of any one geographic region. They need to revise their description to reflect the true kit-house pedigree which makes the house quite interesting.
It would be fun to write about your house in a future post; if you are open to the idea please use the contact form to get in touch with me. The article you link to was very informative; I had not seen it before. Thanks!
Thanks for your reply! I don’t know the details of the building of the house, information from 1910 is limited. I can only assume that the turret was not wanted, and perhaps used for the construction of a front porch roof, or just not used. An upstairs front porch was later added, I’m not sure of the date.
I don’t know where the Westminster Historical Society got the term “Folk Vernacular”. but your assessment is, most likely, correct about not knowing what else to call it. When the house down the street was termed a Sears house several years ago, the Historical Society recognized it, but nothing official has been noted about recent Harris house findings, and the lady most instrumental within the Historical Society passed away last month, so whoever takes the helm, is unknown for now.
I can get together some photo documentation, and would like to have our house is a story. Thanks,
Art J.
Thanks, Art! I’ll be in touch with you soon by email… looking forward to posting about your house!
Hi, please note the note below, from a few days ago, that I sent to Seth Hoffman. I’d like to send some photos of my Harris J-16, as you had suggested 5 years ago. Where are you located?
Art J.
Thanks, Art! I will reply to you in an email on Monday.
Wow, Art, that is fascinating! It’s interesting to learn more about the research you’ve done, and the careful restoration. I would love to hear more and see photos!
Thanks for your reply, Seth, I replied to the Architectural Observer, as noted above, and will see if they would like some photos!
Thanks, Art J.
Seth, I can’t believe it is going on five years since I first wrote. Yes, I would still like to submit photos of my J-16 house. Re-reading some of the initial opinions about the looks of the J-6 as being “stubby” and awkward, and other less than flattering descriptions, I was surprised, as for someone growing up in our J-16, and observing a J-6 a few blocks away, I never thought of either home as being unattractive! I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
The J-6 I speak of, was built in 1910 by a local Westminster, CO woman for herself & her daughter, and she also took in a few young men as boarding students from a nearby university. The local historical society noted that the house was the first to have a complete bathroom, and it was before the town had a water system. Apparently, water was brought in until water piping was available. Our J-16 was built a short while after it, also in 1910, by a dean from the local university. Let me know about submission of photos! Thanks,
Art
We owned either the Harris or Sears version of this house at 27 Hungerford Ave, Adams, NY from 1968 to 1975.
The floor plan is most like the Harris but the turret roof was pretty much round w/o the additional framing.
Also, we didn’t have the bump out bat window in the dining room.
Note, the Sears Maytown in a previous article has the pictures all printed in the reverse.
Correction: I just looked up the ouse in Adams on Google maps, and it did have the triangular framing on the turret roof.
Your former home is definitely a Harris Brothers product! It appears to have come through time relatively intact (more proof of the livability of the original design). Here is a link to a close-up on Street View. Thanks for sharing!
We closed off the door between the front hall and added a hall closet. We also built a 12X14 addition with a 1/2 bath to the rear, off the kitchen. We kept it as architecturally pure as possible.
When we owned it, the turret had a copper roof. My wife used to love lying bed listening to the rain hitting that roof.
I live in one of these too! Built in 1914, it’s the larger version, both wider and taller. It was customized with built ins in the dining room and rear bedroom, an extension of the kitchen that juts out off the side, and a stairway to the third floor from the smallest bedroom, which is about 3’ smaller in my house to accommodate the stairs.
My house is in Massachusetts, but I believe the man who built it spent a few years in Chicago before he came back to the area, very shortly before the house was built.
I think the finest example, with no major alterations and no vinyl siding is the one on Main St. in Scio, NY. They just refreshed the outside and it looks amazing. That one was customized as well, and boasts architectural details.
Excellent write up by the way! I’ve researched my home since I moved here in 2016 and somehow this is the first time I’ve ever seen it.
The house in Scio is obviously loved, too. Here is a link to it via Street View. It appears to have had vinyl on it when the image was captured in 2018 but is otherwise quite intact! Thanks for sharing this.