Westerville Westly

Today, I present to you, one of the most beautiful Westlys I have ever seen.

I know, I know... I think I've said that about all the Westlys I have posted about on this blog, but they are all gorgeous!! It's slowly turning into one of my favorite models.

The one that we are looking at in this post is located at 24 E Park St, Westerville, Ohio. Westerville is an affluent suburb of Columbus, with a general population of 36,000 people. It's also home to a few other Sears houses, some of which may be featured in a blog post later on!

Sears Westly at 24 E Park St, Westerville, OH
Photo courtesy of Zillow.com

When I was searching for houses on Zillow, this caught my attention right away, mainly because of the front porch details. When I took a closer look, it turned out to be a Westly, sans the dormer balcony. In some cases, people prefer to have the extra room in the dormer, so they enclose the space. Below is a photo of another gorgeous Westly in Columbus that does have the balcony. It's also important to note that both of these homes do have the original porch railings as well!

Sears Westly at 251 W Lakeview Ave, Columbus, OH
Photo courtesy of the Franklin County Auditor's office

The Westly at the Park St address is the older model of the Westly, which was available in the 1918 Sears Modern Homes catalog. By the 1920 catalog, the newer floor plan (No. 3085) had been added, and by the 1925 catalog, the older floor plan (No. 2026) had disappeared.

From the 1920 catalog of Sears Modern Homes

It's pretty easy to tell what version of the Westly you are looking at from the windows on the sides of the house. For the older model, there will be two single windows on each side of the first floor. For the newer model, there are three single windows on the left side, and two single windows and a double window on the right side.

When I google drove past the house, it had not been remodeled yet, but below is an example of what an older model Westly should look like on the right side. The left side had too much foliage to be able to see anything.

Sears Westly at 24 E Park St, Westerville, OH
Photo courtesy of Google Maps

So now that we've gone over the exterior of the house, it's time for the interior! This is what is mentioned about the first floor in the 1920's Sears Modern Homes catalog:

For this Westly, it's a bit of a custom job... instead of the "colonnades," our owners elected for pocket doors. Andrew Mutch, of Kit House Hunters, mentioned that we don't see pocket doors often in Sears homes, mainly because DIY homeowners weren't up for their complex installation. But my oh my, these doors are beautiful!

Photo courtesy of Zillow.com

From this view, I saw a few more custom touches that the owners put on the home -- from the looks of them, they are probably original to the house.

First is the fireplace -- if you look at the catalog photo, you will see that the fireplace is supposed to be diagonal in the corner. I'm not sure why they preferred to have it that way instead, but I have a feeling that it may have had something to do with those pocket doors.

Second is the wider opening for the library area on the right. It was supposed to be a smaller door, so if it needed to be turned into a bedroom at some point, then it could be. Maybe the original owners knew they would never need a downstairs bedroom, so they opted to turn it into a more open space instead.

Also, take a moment to look at the newel posts of the staircase -- these are original to the home, as you can find them in the Sears Building Materials for Millwork, Roofing and Lumber catalog.

Photo courtesy of Archive.org

Photo courtesy of Zillow.com

If you take a look at the photo above, you will notice that both rooms have a nice big front window. These windows are also original to the house, as you can find them in the same Sears Building Material catalog that I talked about above.

The last photo that I wanted to show you was the kitchen. It's been completely remodeled -- and they added one cool feature!

Photo courtesy of Zillow.com

See the little bathroom in the middle there? That was supposed to be a pantry for the kitchen. I'm pretty positive that this half-bath is NOT an original feature of the house, but it's still a pretty useful one for this day and age.

When you take a look inside of the bathroom, you can see an upper cabinet off to the right -- that was original to the pantry, so it's nice that they were able to re-use it for storage! You can also see the original ceiling of the pantry as well in the very corner of the photo below.

Photo courtesy of Zillow.com

Moving along, we're going to head upstairs. In the photo below, you can also get a better look at the newel posts of the staircase, along with the original balusters as well.

Photo courtesy of Zillow.com

Here's a photo of the hallway, showing the doorways into the three bedrooms and the bathroom. Also another nice view of those newel posts.

Photo courtesy of Zillow.com

The door closest to the stairs is into the bathroom, the next door would be into the smaller bedroom, the door after that would be the bedroom with the giant dormer (with no balcony), and the last door (to the extreme left) would be the side bedroom.

Here is an another thing that originally threw me off as well -- all of the upstairs hardware is not correct. Judith Chabot, our resident hardware specialist from Sears House Seeker, mentioned that it didn't even look to be Sears-made. The realtor took a close up of one of the doorknobs and it is totally different than what it's supposed to be!

Photo courtesy of Zillow.com

Page from the 1920 Sears Modern Home catalog
showing what hardware comes with the Westly

I'm not sure on why the original owners did not opt for Sears hardware, but it could have been due to cost or them already having this hardware on hand. It's just one of those things that we will never know! The hardware that was chosen for the house sure is pretty though!

From years of watching "Flip or Flop" (a very guilty pleasure) on HGTV, I know that the two things that sell houses are kitchens and bathrooms. Well, whoever ended up remodeling this house did a beautiful job with the upstairs bathroom! That tub is dreams!

Photo courtesy of Zillow.com

The other notable thing upstairs is that one of the bedrooms of the Westly has a huge "Trunk Room," akin to today's version of a walk-in closet.

Photos courtesy of Zillow.com

The last thing I wanted to talk about was the back of the house. When I was showing you photos of the upstairs, you probably noticed a few tinier windows. All of these windows look out into the backyard.

Photo courtesy of Zillow.com

Obviously a lot of that decking is newly added, but on the original Westly, there was supposed to be a small stoop off the backdoor. It might still be hiding there under there!

If you take a look at the catalog photo, all of these windows do match up to it perfectly! All-in-all, this is a perfect model of the Westly, complete with a LOT of original, beautiful details.

If you're driving around and spot a Westly, or any other Sears kit home, give me a shout at MidwestSearsHouses@gmail.com. Happy hunting!!