PRESIDENTIAL DESIGN: Woodrow Wilson and his wife had an active role in the design of this house on Library Place, where they lived during his tenure as Princeton University president. To honor the 100th anniversary of the conclusion of World War I during Wilson’s U.S. presidency, the home’s current owners are holding an event to benefit the nonprofit Give Something Back foundation. (Photo Courtesy of the Historical Society of Princeton)

By Anne Levin

Woodrow Wilson has been the focus of numerous events that Robert Carr has held in his home at 82 Library Place. It was Wilson, after all, who designed and built the house in 1896, during his tenure as president of Princeton University.

But the “Party of the Century,” planned for Sunday, November 11, is the first time Carr is using his historic home for a fundraiser. The event will benefit Give Something Back, which provides scholarships and mentoring to students facing economic hardship and other adversities. Carr founded the nonprofit in 2003, the same year he bought the house.

An actor playing Wilson himself will make an appearance at the event. “He doesn’t look like him, but he knows a lot about him and has done it before,” said Carr, who calls Wilson “the seminal figure in American history.” The celebration honors the 100th anniversary of the conclusion of World War I. It is date-specific: November 11 was the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Wilson, the 28th U.S. president, led America through the war.

“We’ll break it up into a couple of sections,” said Carr of the $150-a-ticket event (the suggested donation, but donations are not required). “There will be a cocktail party in the afternoon, some educational stuff, and a traveling exhibit we set up with Lewis University will be on view at the house, including some documents and memorabilia.”

Carr has immersed himself in all things Wilson since he and his family moved to the house that Wilson, his wife, and children occupied from 1896 to 1902. “There were 19 owners of this house before I bought it,” Carr said. “The University was one of the owners back in the Depression, and they used it for faculty housing.”

Despite its impressive pedigree, the house was vacant and in decline when the Carrs took it on. They hired architect Ron Berlin and Baxter Construction to undertake a substantial renovation. “It was actually very well built,” said Carr. “I told Jim Baxter I wanted it to last for another 100 years, and they did a marvelous job. The workers were very committed. It was a huge and meaningful project for a lot of us. Ron Berlin got an award from the state for his work.”

Upon granting that award in 2016, the New Jersey Historic Sites Council also commended Carr and his wife, Jill, for the project. The organization “always keeps an eye out for deserving candidates that might not have the backing of public dollars, nor the weight of regulatory intervention,” a statement read. “A lot of times, people get it right on their own, out of sincere respect for the past and concern for the legacy in the future.”

Research done by Carr revealed that Wilson and his wife, Ellen Axson Wilson, were closely involved with New York architect Edward S. Child in the design. Prior to a 2016 house tour that featured the home, Historical Society of Princeton Executive Director Izzy Kasdin commented, “They [the Wilsons] didn’t have much money and had to make a lot of compromises. You can see the cost-cutting measures they took. They wanted to have a separate servants’ staircase, but they couldn’t afford it and they were disappointed in that. Some of the features are from the Sears catalogue. It’s so interesting because the perception of Library Place is that everything is the best.”

The house is one of the few in the United States to have been designed and built by a U.S. president, and are still being used. “I believe there are two — this, and Monticello,” said Carr. “I hired a student to try and find another but we couldn’t find one that was still being used.”

Wilson’s legacy has been controversial since evidence of his racist policies and actions came to light two years ago. The University grappled with pressure to change the name of the Woodrow Wilson School and the residential college which also bears his name, ultimately deciding not to do so. But the trustees did call for “an expanded and more vigorous commitment to diversity and inclusion at Princeton” and a series of initiatives to contextualize Wilson’s legacy and to “diversify campus art and iconography.”

Carr prefers not to take a position on the subject. “What I do like to say about him is that he was someone we can learn a lot from, because he got people to agree to something that was impossible to implement, and we suffered because of it,” he said. “But he was considered the most popular human being ever on Earth in his lifetime. He went to Paris and London after the war, and people were lined up for miles because he ended the war. Then it sort of fell apart after that. But it’s amazing how much damage a well-intentioned person can do by over-promising.”

To attend the event, RSVP at giveback.ngo/1918-2018 by October 1.