If you google the term Vallonia, you might get one of three things: a small town in Indiana, a genus of air-breathing land snails, or, a little further down the search results, a popular Sears mail-order home from the 1920s.

You guessed it: this week’s Kit House Of the Week is once more a Sears house, currently on the market for sale for $499,000. It was built in 1923, and no matter what angle you try, it doesn’t look like a snail at all. At least not from the outside–we’ll check out the interior tomorrow.

To find the house, we had to go a little further into the Maryland suburbs, to College Park. The house is about seven miles from the District line, and the huge main campus of the University of Maryland is just two blocks away, so perhaps this house is going to fulfill some nice professor’s dream. (American History or Architecture?)

The listing is endowed with 10 pictures, all showing the front and sides of the house as well as the idyllic 25,000 square foot lot around it. The house itself looks like it’s encased in unfortunate white vinyl, but the porch railing with its very distinct pattern and the Sears-typical posts are still the original ones. My business partner, Marcie, and I are dying to see the inside, so we’re headed to College Park tomorrow. (Did I mention there’s an IKEA about a mile away; we could check for some interesting new staging items along the way.)

So, stay tuned for more before the weekend. Meanwhile, check out the nifty Vallonia Marcie photographed in her own East Bethesda neighborhood. It doesn’t only sport the original railing but the original trim and siding as well. (Unfortunately, that one is not for sale.)