James Betelle, Where Are You?

The Search for a Lost Architect

James Betelle, Where Are You? header image 1

Nearly every city built at least one public school with some degree of Gothic decoration. Few of these buildings are masterpieces, but as a whole they form an architectural phenomenon yet to receive adequate study. — The Only Proper Style-Gothic Architecture in America

The Robert Treat Hotel

November 29th, 2006 · No Comments · Architecture

Newark in the 1910s was a city one would hardly recognize today. Driven by an influx of money and opportunity, it was a thriving commercial and industrial port.
A city on the rise needs grand structures, and certainly nothing makes a statement that a city has arrived than having a stately, luxurious hotel. Newark decided to [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:··

The Marshall School, South Orange, New Jersey

August 15th, 2006 · 1 Comment · Architecture

One of the most important contracts for Guilbert & Betelle were the schools of the South Orange and Maplewood School District in New Jersey, where they would eventually design all of the new school buildings up through 1930. The creation of the first school they built, The Marshall School, (named for retiring Board president James [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:··

“New Grade School Buildings of South Orange and Maplewood, NJ”

July 20th, 2006 · No Comments · Architecture, Articles

The following article by JOB appeared in The American School Board Journal, January, 1926. In it, he outlines the unique structure of the SO/M school system, accompanied by photographs and floorplans of the four initial grade schools. His description is rather understated, considering how huge the project was; the district had essentially planned to build, [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:···