The Home Portrait is a cool camera, but you will have a very hard time finding one, and it's huge. A 4x5 Series D is actually a hand camera of sorts, and it's much easier to find both the camera and the bits for it, and film, as well. Developing won't be a problem, but printing will be. Contact 5x7s are almost viable; 4x5 contacts are a bit small for most people. If you really want to get into this, you should wander over to
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/ and cruise around there, including the forum. Another site you need to read everything on is
http://graflex.org
Many of us who are using large cameras are shooting xray film. It's dirt cheap-- about 40 cents per 8x10-- and you can cut it down and develop it under a red safe light. I shoot all sizes, 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 on xray film, then scan for printing. If you really want to do the darkroom route, huge enlargers are often given away if you happen to hang with the right crowd--there's no demand at all for them these days. Once you get into the LF world, you'll find we're all over the place, but you don't see us. There might be someone living right next to you, but you'll never find out because you haven't completed your profile to tell us where you live. :-(
"Curtain aperture" is not a model--it's written on the shutter speed chart to indicate a shutter parameter, but ignorant Ebay sellers fix on that line because it's the only thing written on the camera. It's like calling a car "E" because that's what it says on the fuel gauge.