Henry Guest House

Henry Guest House

The Henry Guest House is a sandstone house built in 1760 in the Georgian style, recognizable for its sense of proportion and symmetry. The house originally stood on the corner of Livingston Avenue and Carroll Place (known today as New Street). Guest was a tanner and served as an alderman during the second Colonial Charter of New Brunswick in 1763. Guest, as well as his three sons who reached adulthood, was an ardent patriot during the Revolutionary War; there is existing correspondence between Guest and both Thomas Paine and John Adams. After Henry Guest’s death in 1815, the home was put up for sale; the advertisement called it, “one of the best stone houses in the State of New Jersey.” In 1925, to save the building from demolition, the house was moved farther up Livingston Avenue where it now sits next to the New Brunswick Free Public Library. A major renovation took place in 1992 through the combined efforts of the City of New Brunswick and the New Jersey State Historic Trust Fund in order to ensure the house’s survival for future generations. As Guest himself is reported to have said, “If his descendants would only keep a roof on it, the house would stand till Gabriel blew his trumpet.” Used for several functions over the course of the twentieth century, the house is now primarily used for community meetings.

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Middlesex County Historic Properties

Middlesex County Historic Districts