100 Years Ago Today in Windham NH – W.S. Harris Reporting in the Exeter Newsletter

Albert Farmer’s Pre-Cut House in West Windham NH

WINDHAM , March 2. — Albert W. Farmer’s house at West Windham nears completion and presents a fine appearance. This is one of the ready-made houses, the materials coming from Bay City, Mich., every timber and board cut for its place, and only needing to be put together according to the blue-print plans. Mr. Farmer and his son and H.Y. Gilson, who are doing the work, are enthusiastic over this way of building a house, and say there is a great savings in expenses, the materials for the whole house costing under $1,300. This house stood until a few years ago, on Haverhill Road, on the right, just before the intersection with Mammoth Road.

Aladdin Homes Catalog from 1914 Showing Model Selected by Albert Farmer

“The Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan was one of America’s most long lived manufacturers of mail-order, “kit homes.” Begun in 1906 by two brothers, Otto and William Sovereign, the family-owned firm continued to manufacture houses until 1981. Over the firm’s long history it sold over 75,000 homes to both individual and corporate customers.” There slogan was “Built in a Day.”

From Wikipedia: “Aladdin quickly expanded to become one of largest mail-order house companies. By 1915 sales surpassed $1 million. In 1918 Aladdin alone accounted for 2.37 percent of all housing starts in the United States, around 1,800 homes. The company’s greatest success came from sales to industries which constructed company towns around new plants, mines and mills. The town of Hopewell, Virginia was largely developed by the DuPont Company using Aladdin homes. In 1917 Aladdin shipped 252 houses to Birmingham England, for the Austin Motor Company who built Austin Village to house workers for munitions, tank and aircraft manufacture during World War I”