Number 3 
Volume XX 
September, 19 11 
Homes That Architects Have Built for Themselves 
I.—THE HOME OF MR. ERNEST F. GUILBERT IN FOREST HILL, A SUBURB OF 
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY—A DUTCH COLONIAL TYPE WITH AN UNUSUAL LIVING-ROOM 
BY P. A. Huntingto n. 
Photographs by H. H. S. 
[7 he charge is frequently made that the layman when building his home is timid regarding the incorporation of features that zvould give his 
house individuality, preferring rather to hold to the conventional thing in the fear that he will get something bizarre. In houses that architects build for 
themselves we should see the results of unhampered design. This is the first article in a series; other examples will appear in future issues . — Editor.] 
I HAVE very much the 
same feeling in seeing 
a new house that is arous¬ 
ed by meeting a stranger. 
In either case there is the 
first rapid appraisal of the 
subject as a whole, then 
the sharp lookout for those 
features, mannerisms or 
idiosyncracies that go to 
make up individuality. Just 
as one type of man leaves 
an absolutely colorless im¬ 
pression on one's mind, 
without the least desire to 
meet him again, so does a 
house fail to awaken the 
faintest flutter of interest 
in the mind of the visitor. 
The pity of it is that the 
vast majority of houses fall 
into this class, lacking even 
a simple feature that would 
serve to show a personality 
behind the design or the 
furnishing. And for this 
very reason—the prevalence 
of the commonplace — a 
house that really has some¬ 
thing to show you, some 
expression in materials that 
proclaims an idea or an ideal 
that house arouses in you a 
feeling of appreciative satis¬ 
faction very similar to 
that resulting from a meet- The exterior is of the pliable Dutch 
mg with a man like Theo- roof coming down to the top 
dore Roosevelt, Thomas 
Edison, Gilbert Chesterton, or any other man of strong per¬ 
sonality. 
And, fortunately, these houses of distinct individuality are not 
confined to any one class, locality or size. You may find one at 
Lenox, stately in its broad acres, but you are just as likely to 
come upon a far humbler sister in a little country lane. Neither 
size nor expense seems to 
have anything to do with 
the matter. Frequently, in¬ 
deed, you will find the 
costliest materials used with 
the worst possible taste, 
or, on the other hand, the 
least expensive woods given 
a treatment that indicates 
the fullest appreciation of 
their particular sort of 
beauty, lifting them high 
above the plane of ordinary 
things. 
While, as I have said, 
you need not expect to find 
houses of character in any 
one class, there is no 
doubt whatever that if you 
wanted to find one in a 
hurry you would save time 
by looking up first the 
homes that architects have 
built for themselves. The 
chances are that you will 
find what you are seek¬ 
ing before you have look¬ 
ed through many of 
these. 
Of course, the reason is 
not far to seek. In de¬ 
signing his own home the 
architect is hampered in 
no way — unless it be on 
the score of expense — in 
Colonial type, the broad gambrel carrying out the ideas 
of the first-story windows that his training and ex¬ 
perience have shown him 
to be most desirable. Probably he has a number of pet 
schemes up his sleeve that have been worked out for past 
clients who have been too timid to allow anything out 
of the ordinary to appear in their future homes. At 
the same time, the architect, if, as is most likely, he is a 
man of refined tastes, will have no desire to produce a 
( M7) 
