Guilbert and Betelle

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Columbia High School, Maplewood, New Jersey.
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Columbia High School, Maplewood, New Jersey.

Guilbert and Betelle was an architecture firm that was a prolific designer of schools and architectural buildings throughout the East Coast of the United States, notable for its adaptation of diverse styles to create a new American "Collegiate Gothic" style of school architecture. The firm was a partnership of Ernest F. Guilbert and James Oscar Betelle.

After Guilbert's death in 1916, Betelle became the owner of the firm. He was architect for hundreds of schools in five different states and a consultant on many more. Two of these schools, Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut and the Radburn School in Fair Lawn, New Jersey are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Betelle's organization was architect for such buildings as the Essex County Hall of Records, Newark, New Jersey, Hotels Robert Treat and Alexander Hamilton, Chamber of Commerce Building, Essex Club (now the New Jersey Historical Society) and a half dozen banks, also in Newark, New Jersey.

Other notable structures designed by the firm include:

[edit] Research project

A research project entitled "James Betelle, Where Are You?" is currently underway to build a cohesive biographical and professional history of Betelle, whose records have been mostly lost, misplaced or neglected over the years.

[edit] External links