It is suggested that he worked briefly in the 1920s as a naval architect, designing ocean liner interiors, and then as art director for a motion picture studio.
In 1926, he may have become a salesman for an antiques dealer who specialized in Elizabethan and Jacobean furniture, and Robsjohn-Gibbings was assigned prominent accounts such as Elizabeth Arden and Neiman Marcus.
It features mosaic floor reproductions, sculptural fragments, and sparse furnishings, all combining to achieve his trademark brand of modern historicism.
Creating more than 200 pieces of furniture for the house between 1934 and 1938, Robsjohn-Gibbings indulged his passion for Greco-Roman design by incorporating sphinxes, dolphins, lions' paw feet, and Ionic columns in table bases, torchères, and select pieces of furniture, nonetheless keeping the interior design simple and elegant.
His work has been studied by Daniella Ohad Smith, who has delivered a paper in the annual conference of the Interior Design Educator Council in 2008 and has published an article on his concepts in shaping the modern American home.
— “Robsjohn-Gibbings Names the Biggest Bore” Town & Country Jan 81 "If Thomas Jefferson visited your home, he would judge your furniture for its utility not for its antique charm."