Gustav Stickley at the Newark Museum

True Confessions: I bought my 1926 West Orange house because of its built-in arts and crafts style bookcases. I own three good pieces of reproduction Gustav Stickley furniture. The only TV shows I really watch are "Antiques Roadshow" and "This Old House," unless home alone, when I dig "Project Runway."

My husband and I cut out of some of the prenuptial events for my nephew's California wedding to pay homage at the arts and crafts Gamble House in Pasadena. I love the Newark Museum. I love Craftsman Farm's, a museum preserving Gustav Stickley's Parsippany, New Jersey home, too.

I think Maplewood's Ulysses Grant Dietz, the senior curator of decorative arts at the Newark Museum, should be declared a national treasure.

All of this comes together in a honey of a major-not-to-be-missed 100 piece show at the Newark Museum: "Gustav Stickley and the American Arts and Crafts Movement," which runs there through Jan. 2, before traveling to the Dallas Museum of Art and then San Diego. The show, featuring furniture, pottery, metalwork, lighting, textiles, architectural plans and more, came to Newark at Dietz's urging.

"I wanted the show to come to Newark because it's the most important show of its kind ever mounted and Frederick Keer — a Newark Museum founding trustee — was the Stickley Craftsman Furniture retailer for New Jersey, right in Newark. What could be better? Several of the major lenders to the exhibition are local New Jersey collectors," Dietz said.

Let's back up. In case you weren't watching "Antiques Roadshow," anytime in the past 10 years, Stickley furniture finds and related arts and crafts pottery are mainstays of the hit public television show's appraisals — as in, a valued at $80,000 to $100,000 music case designed by the celestial architect-designer Harvey Ellis for the Stickley factories in 1903. Until the "rediscovery" of Stickley, you could have picked up this case for a song.

Stickley (1858-1942) was the eldest surviving son of a Midwest immigrant farm family. His is an American self-made-man story of years of influence and success lost when a fickle, post World War One American public turned away in favor of nostalgic design.

It also is an American story of idealism melded with business savvy. Stickley began as a furniture manufacturer. An 1890's trip to England during the height of its aesthetic movement transformed Stickley into a visionary seeking to uplift a growing American middle class through good, affordable furniture and design. He stood for simple forms made of sturdy materials and employing natural finishes. Between about 1900 and 1913, his furniture and home furnishings were sold nationwide, including at his 13 story New York City design center and until 1916 his "Craftsman Magazine" was a leading national journal of the movements' ideals.

Soon there were house plans available, many on view  at this exhibit with estimated and actual costs. About 225 craftsmen homes were built based on these plans all over America. New Jersey, close to home in Maplewood, has some wonderful examples.

This exhibit was organized by Kevin W. Tucker, the Margot B. Perot Curator of Art and Design at the Dallas Art Museum. Many examples from the Newark Museum's outstanding collection of art pottery are on display.  

The centerpiece of the exhibit is a tour de force re-enactment of a serenely beautiful dining room that Stickley first created in 1903 for his Syracuse, New York Craftsman Building. The dining room drew crowds and exclamations then and is drawing crowds and exclamations at the Newark Museum now.

It is the dining room of your dreams, a dining room of  grace and balance. And a dining room that Dietz and I agree, says, "home."

Insider's tips: Go now so that you can put an arts-and-crafts-style vase, tile, table runner or chair on your holiday wish list. A portion of the sales from the museum's temporary shop will support education at the Newark Museum. Try to arrive at the museum in time for a half hour docent led tour, "The Stickley Style," that is free with the suggested admission at 1:30 p.m., Wednesday to Sunday, the regular museum days. There is parking for a low fee in the museum lot or take NJTransit to Newark Broad Street station and either walk along Washington Street to the museum's address at #49 or take the adjacent Newark light rail. Call (973) 596-6550 or see www.newarkmuseum.org.