This kit house was something unique and amazing. Sears Roebuck & Co. would send you the materials so you (and hopefully some well-trained friends) could build your own house. For $683 1913-era dollars.I'm not a CPA, so I have no idea how that values out in today's money, but I don't think there's anything like this in 2007. It sounds like somebody's fantasy fiction.
In College Park, MD, my SIL's inlaws owned a Sears kit house that I think was just sold recently(w/i the last 5yrs)—it was in an historical register. I visited there once around 1998, but wasn't aware of its significance at the time; it looked and felt like any other two-story, single-family home.
According to the handy inflation calculator at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis' web site (http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/data/us/calc/) $683 1913 dollars had the purchasing power of about $14,177 in 2007. No small sum, but probably not enough to buy a log cabin kit, which might be the closest thing on the market now to a Sears house.
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