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Singer KT Tunstall trims price of mail-order Craftsman in Venice

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KT Tunstall is ready to sell in Venice. After finding no takers for her 1920s Craftsman, the singer-songwriter has relisted the home for $2.95 million — down $200,000 from her original asking price.

The 96-year-old abode boasts an interesting, and contentious, history. It was built in 1923 as a mail-order home, meaning the buyer picked it out of a catalog, and a company shipped between 10,000 and 30,000 precut pieces to be assembled into a house on-site.

Which company it came from matters significantly — not only for the property’s lore, but for its value.

From the 1900s into the 1940s, kit homes offered an affordable path to home ownership for low- and middle-class families. Most sold for a few thousand and took a single person roughly three months to build.

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In the years since, mail-order homes sold by Sears, Roebuck & Co. have developed a cult following. Sears sold around 75,000 of them through its Modern Homes catalog from 1908 to 1940, with 370 designs including English cottage, Cape Cod, Dutch Colonial Revival and Craftsman.

The company destroyed all sales records during a corporate housecleaning, however, meaning the only way to confirm a Sears kit home is through an architectural survey.

In 2014, the property was marketed as a Sears kit home and listed for $2.495 million. Tunstall bought it a few months later for $2.205 million — a massive leap from the $825,500 it sold for in 2002, records show.

Last year, kit home expert Rachel Shoemaker told The Times there is no chance the home is from Sears, as it doesn’t match the building materials. The attic vent, she said, is the biggest giveaway.

Instead, she posited that it was made by Pacific Ready Cut Homes Inc., an L.A.-based company that produced 40,000 kit homes sold mostly in California.

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Regardless of origin, the home retains its Craftsman look but has undergone plenty of changes over the years, including a blue-gray paint job during Tunstall’s ownership.

Past a hedged courtyard, a covered porch sits under tapered columns and a gabled roof. Inside are 2,330 square feet of beamed ceilings, hardwood floors and paneled walls. An open floor plan combines a living room with a tile fireplace and a dining area with built-ins. A galley-style kitchen with a vintage O’Keefe & Merritt stove completes the scene.

Three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an office round out the interior. The dramatic master suite, set under vaulted ceilings and a chandelier, opens to a private balcony.

Outside, a landscaped patio space adjoins a detached garage.

Sigi Ulbrich and Pam Moran of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties hold the listing.

A native of Scotland, Tunstall has released six studio albums since 2004, with hits including “Suddenly I See,” “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” and “Other Side of the World.”

jack.flemming@latimes.com | Twitter: @jflem94

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