Frank A. Roberts Home

The Craftsman style evolved as the architectural expression of simplicity and domestic harmony, merging nature with the built environment. Its popularity in the early 1900s eased the transition from Victorian fussiness to the modern era. This one-and-one-half-story Craftsman style home was built circa 1913 for Frank A. and Eva Roberts.

Stylistic elements include the full-width porch spanning the front which, according to the Craftsman style dictum, provided a necessary link between outdoors and indoors. A railed balustrade and three floor to ceiling columns highlight the façade. Roberts was a prominent Missoula attorney whose untimely death in 1919 occurred at the peak of his career.

At his funeral the Reverend J. N. MacLean, father of noted author Norman MacLean, eulogized Roberts as a “friend of the Friend of men.” Eva Roberts sold the home in 1920 to realtor M. R. Ruthorford. Throughout the decades occupants included Missoulian Publishing Company partner George C. Rice (1920), Reverend John R. Hahn of the University Congregational Church (1930), M. R. Rutherford (1936), and photographer Ace Woods (1940-1945).

MT NATIONAL REGISTER SIGN TEXT 1990 TO APRIL 2019