I can spend hours looking at old floor plan books, this has got to be the most interesting though. It is nice to think that someone had dreams and hopes and aspirations just like me! They put random floorplans in, a love story (perhaps it is just a bookmark?) and so much more intrigue than the normal floor plan book. This is history!

This has to be one of the most unusual reproductions and displays of a home plan book I have yet to encounter! There are all the usual pages showing front or angled front elevations, floor plans and descriptions given of them, but wait! There's more!
About half way through, up pops some random pages of parts of some romance tales, out of order and incomplete, and a front and back view of a newspaper clipping discussing the relative merits of and showing a photograph of the illustration of a Standard Homes Company model, the Monticello! I'm not sure at what point in the process all these things came to be mishmashed into one publication, but it certainly catches one's attention, if nothing else!
Other than that, this seems to be a typical home plans booklet of the times, containing illustrations of elevations and descriptions of styles and features, all measurements of the interior given in cubic footage, not square footage, but this was the standard scale of the day, with approximate cost data calculated based on .35¢ per cubic foot.

**UPDATE** As of 11/16/16
To AncientAxim - Regarding my review and the mention of "reproductions" as it pertains to this catalog - I am fully aware of the provenance of these types of catalogs as being real, genuine, three dimensional items, given out (or sometimes sold at nominal cost) by Building Materials Suppliers, Lumber Yards, Banks and other sources of home financing; Real Estate Dealers, etc., to potential customers. This was a way of enticing said customers to page through them, when looking to build, or even just mildly curious. Then, this could potentially generate business in the form of ordering blueprints, materials lists, blank contracts and other documents from the catalog's original supplier, through the source of this catalog locally, or even directly through the companies which provided the catalog, if that was available.

Then, with the catalog's provider clearly printed on the cover, as they were ordered from the original catalog printer/publisher/supplier, keeping that source conveniently under the eye of the potential customer each time it is picked up; to remind them of the convenient potential source of other services and/or materials, or financing services if they came from Real Estate Offices, Banks, Savings and Loans, Building and Loans; building materials and potentially contractor or carpenter services from local providers, plus building materials if the catalog came from Lumber Yards or Building Materials suppliers.

My reference to reproductions applied only to the digitized "reproduction" of the real original document. Not anything to do with the source of these images being some kind of "reproduction" or copy. I have shelves and shelves, and stacks and still more stacks of these types of catalogs - from binders of sales materials of certain company's homes, to 2" thick hardback Home Builders Catalogs from various years, to numerous well (and not quite so well) known Kit Homes Catalogs, to multiple catalogs like this one from various companies, to two page pamphlets, physically in my home at my disposal any time of the day or night.

I have been studying vintage American architectural styles for many years, strictly on an amateur basis - I am neither employed in any related profession, nor am I selling any such services for any kind of remuneration. It's strictly an abiding personal interest I have had since I was raised almost from birth in the "Cradle" of this Nation's beginnings, on the East Coast, with Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown literally at my front door, and always within my reach. The Chesapeake Bay is my home territory, as I could frequently be found in it, on it, under it, on top of it, taking small amounts of its (then) abundant sea life to provide interesting and economical meals for my table, or on its shores at any given time. There's really no earlier source of homes for (European) human shelter in this country.

At this point in time, I am extremely interested in, and fascinated by, the time period from the very early 1920's through the very late 1940's/early 1950's. In addition to the physical resources I mentioned previously, I have a significant listing stowed away here of similar items. Into the hundreds I'm sure. I have also developed the money-saving habit of double checking on archive to see if anything I happen to come across for sale might already be located here in scanned/digitized/copied form. Since I access this site primarily from my smartphone anyway, I can usually check that anywhere I happen to be, as long as I have any kind of data connection.

As for the additional materials found that make absolutely no sense, I still contend they are not part of the original material printed in this catalog. After closely reexamining them, again, what they are, are clippings from newspapers and magazines that the catalog owner wished to keep, and were possibly being used as bookmarks in some cases. The one with the house plan on one side is the front (page 9) of the one that follows with two totally unrelated book reviews on the next page (page 10). One book reviewed is about do we really need meat? The one started just below it is about someone escaping becoming a political prisoner/prisoner of war. Totally off the charts from home plan catalogs! (These are the page numbers in the upper corners of the clippings, not the catalog pages.) The tear-out lines match up perfectly, if you look at the page 9 as the front and the page 10 as the back of the same piece of paper.

There are four more pages shown here, which are also front and back of two other pages, one dealing with a fashion review of clothing from the early 1930's. It has a drawing or line art of a woman fashionably dressed for about 1931, and there is also an image of a handbag. The pages covering these four are numbered sequentially from 20 to 23. The "romance" story reads like typical romantic drivel that women's magazines were all falling all over themselves to furnish for women with too much free time on their hands would become engrossed in, assuring high sales and circulation rates. That directly affected their advertising rates, and was what made them money. It is neither begun nor ended on that page, and is likely the back side of what the owner really wanted to keep, given its incomplete nature. The other two pages you can look at for yourself.

At some point in the unrelated pieces, one is of a Standard Homes Company design, the Monticello. I am very familiar with this plan, as it, and the company responsible for its design, are personal favorites of mine. I have several of their extremely colorful original catalogs, and the binder I mentioned full of sales materials. They are in no way related to the company responsible for the designs in this catalog. And, I might add, they - Standard Homes Company - are still in business in North Carolina.

Likely what happened is this catalog, probably along with a few dozen others, were assigned to someone to copy into the system. They were told to "copy everything in that stack" without qualifying that they should leave out anything totally unrelated, because that would require that they exercise individual judgement as to what was related and what wasn't. Find a clipping with a houseplan on it, and this being a houseplan catalog, it gets copied, certainly. And exactly in the page lineup where it was found. Better throw in the other side too, just for good measure, and then they could honestly say they copied everything they were given.

I've even worked for Clerical Temp Agencies, and I was given assignments sometimes where they didn't cover all the bases, and we had no latitude to make our own judgements about exactly what was expected in certain circumstances. It actually makes sense to people like me who have had to work under those circumstances. But, it doesn't make it correct. Those images don't belong with this catalog, and have nothing to do with any sales pitches related to it. They were just found inside the pages, and included in the scanning processing.

Awesome- As far as I can tell, all of the images have copied over fine over to .epub file on my phone. The blueprints, ads, all in full color and crisp pictures. This is not the usual for archived titles, there is a dearth of images in archived files, especially the ones done by "Google" (which are TERRIBLE, by the way)
Also, referring to reviewer" ShariD57" writes:



&&&&&&(this is ShariD57 ahead and not me:

Subject: Unusual reproduction of a Plan Book...
This has to be one of the most unusual reproductions and displays of a home plan book I have yet to encounter! There are all the usual pages showing front or angled front elevations, floor plans and descriptions given of them, but wait! There's more!
About half way through, up pops some random pages of parts of some romance tales, out of order and incomplete, and a front and back view of a newspaper clipping discussing the relative merits of and showing a photograph of the illustration"

Shari, this IS a plan book- NOT a "reproduction" as you write, also, the "romance tale" was not out of the blue but part of the advertising schtick, if you read it, you'll see their romance will (hopefully:) end with a home purchase! wink wink- the newspaper clipping ad set in image, that's part of this catalogue too. The publications here are the real deal! not "reproductions" - this would have been an actual catalogue that families, couples, and so on, would be given, or say, builders given, to advertise these homes.

I would bet a person can still USE these plans and save a couple hundred bucks, of course you'd have to account for code changes, but there probably aren't a whole lot changed since then (not counting electrical and plumbing, but I would bet stair clearances and things are pretty close to todays)

ON MY LIST TO CHECK EPUB file if images copy through ok...