BlockFrom the form
The catalogue entry the section above was filed under.
NPS Form 10-900 (Oct. 1990) OMB No. 10024-0018 680 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service RECEIVED 2280 MAY 29 2007 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NAT. REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES NATIONAL PARK SERVICE This form is for use in nominating or requesting determinations for individual properties and districts. See instructions in How to Complete the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (National Register Bulletin 16A). Complete each item by marking "x" in the appropriate box or by entering the information requested. If any item does not apply to the property being documented, enter "N/A" for "not applicable." For functions, architectural classification, materials, and areas of significance, enter only categories and subcategories from the instructions.
Place additional entries and narrative items on continuation sheets (NPS Form 10-900a). Use a typewriter, word processor, or computer, to complete all items. 1. Name of Property historic name Wright Memorial Library other names/site number_Wright Building, Duxbury Free Library 2. Location street & number_ 147 St. George Street - not for publication city or town Duxbury - vicinity state Massachusetts _ code_MA county Plymouth code_023 zip code02332 State/Federal Agency Certification As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1986, as amended, I hereby certify that this Z nomination - request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60.
In my opinion, the property E meets - does not meet the National Register Criteria. I recommend that this property be considered significant - nationally O statewide locally. ( See continuation sheet for additional comments.) brana may 16,2007 Signature of certifying official/Title Massachusetts Historical Commission Brona Simon, MHC, State Historic Preservation Officer Date State or Federal agency and bureau In my opinion, the property meets -does not meet the National Register criteria. ( See continuation sheet for additional Comments.) Signature of certifying official/Title Date State or Federal agency and bureau 4. National Park Service Certification I, hereby certify that this property is: entered in the National Register - See continuation sheet. - determined eligible for the National Register - See continuation sheet.
- determined not eligible for the National Register D removed from the National Register - other (explain): _ for Signefure of the Keepe oson 1/t. Beall Date of Action 7.41.0> Wright Memorial Library Name of Property 5. Classification Ownership of Property (Check as many boxes as apply) - private X public-local - public-State - public-Federal Plymouth, MA County and State (Check only one box) X building(s) - district - Site - structure - object Number of Resources within Property (Do not include previously listed resources in the count.) Noncontributing Contributing 1 0 _buildings _ sites _ structures _ objects Total Name of related multiple property listing (Enter "N/A" if property is not part of a multiple property listing.) NA 1 1 2 1 Number of contributing resources previously listed in the National Register 6.
Function or Use Historic Functions (Enter categories from instructions) EDUCATION: Library Current Functions (Enter categories from instructions) -VACANT/NOT IN USE Z. Description Architectural Classification (Enter categories from instructions) LATE AND 20T CENTURY REVIVALS: Italian Renaissance _MODERN MOVEMENT Materials (Enter categories from instructions) foundation CONCRETE wallsBRICK CONCRETE roof COPPER other STONE GLASS Narrative Description (Describe the historic and current condition of the property on one or more continuation sheets.) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number_7 Page1 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Wright Memorial Library Duxbury (Plymouth), MA 7.
ARCHITECTURAL CLASSIFICATION (cont.) LATE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURY REVIVALS: Colonial Revival Summary Paragraph The Wright Memorial Library is a single-story brick library consisting of a formal Italian Renaissance Revival (with elements of Colonial Revival) original building that faces St. George Street, and a Modern style addition to the rear that faces the side (western) parking lot. Situated on a broadly sweeping lawn and surrounded by mature trees and bushes, the library has a formal pedestrian entry walk flanked by low box hedges and eight decorative lampposts. The original building has a prominent square central pavilion with a copper-covered dome and a pedimented portico, and two flanking hip-roofed side wings defined by quoined corners and end chimneys.
Dominating the flat-roofed Modern addition to the rear is a broad cantilevered roof that shelters projecting rectangular bays, and a compact stepped-back two-story southern end wing. The interior of the original building has a coffered central domed rotunda and barrel-vaulted side wings, including a reading room with an elaborately decorated formal fireplace mantel wall. The addition has a large central area with a clerestory, a low-ceilinged two-story split-level end wing, and a full basement that connects with the full basement of the original wing. Owned by the Town of Duxbury, the building is situated on a gently sloping .69- acre site in Millbrook, a medium-density neighborhood of residences interspersed with commercial and civic structures on broad lawns. Except for the addition, Wright Memorial Library is little altered since its period of significance.
Wright Memorial Library is generally in good condition and has historic integrity in terms of setting, design, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. Setting The setting of the Wright Memorial Library is a combination of residential street and municipal institutional campus. For at least two centuries, St. George Street (known as Harmony Street before 1888) has served as an important transportation corridor linking the mainland with the northern edge of coastal Duxbury Village and the Powder Point peninsula. With its branch at Alden Street, St. George Street is the only road from the shore to the mainland between the Duxbury Marshes and the Duck Hill River to the north and the marshes of the Bluefish River to the south. Within view of the library on St.
George Street are a number of primarily 19th- century houses, including four across the street to the northwest, and one on the south side of the street to the east (beyond the school driveway), which characterize this as originally a linear residential corridor. On the northern side of St. George Street, at the head of Alden Street, is 178 St. George Street, a 5-bay Italianate-style house with rear additions that became the first Duxbury Free Library while on its original site (where the Wright Memorial Library stands today). Moved down the street to this second site, this Italianate-style house continued to house town offices until 1975, when they were consolidated at Tremont Street. Today the building serves a combination of uses: private office and residential. Moving eastward, the next house (170 St. George Street) is set far back on its lot, with access off Pine Hill Avenue.
East of Pine Hill Avenue are two more residences on the same parcel, a ca. 1935 brick bungalow (164 St. George; MHC #312), and the altered 19th. (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number1 Page_ 2 Wright Memorial Library Duxbury (Plymouth), MA century Cushman House (156 St. George St.; MHC #313); directly east of them is the driveway to the former Wright Estate (razed, although its stone gate blocks still remain in place, and are partially visible in the corner of Photograph #1), now serving the Ellison Building (Duxbury High School). This driveway entrance is directly across St. George Street from the front walk of the Wright Memorial Library.
Further east on the southeast corner of the school lot is a 2004 historical marker for "Philip Delano (1602-1681)." Sponsored by the Delano Kindred Inc., it reads "Site of land granted to Philip in 1637 by the Plymouth Colony Court. Born in Leiden, a Huguenot, he came to the Plymouth Colony on the 'Fortune' in 1621. A Purchaser, he helped repay the Colony's debts to English merchants. Well respected, he became a freeman. The Delano Family in America descends from him." Across St. George Street from the Delano sign is 125 St. George Street (MHC #134), a 2- story, 5-bay brick house with end chimneys. Known as the George B. Winslow House (1828), this building marks the northwestern edge of the Old Shipbuilders' National Register District. Moving westward from the George Winslow House, a drainage ditch, lawn, and school driveway separate the residence from the Wright Memorial Library.
The lawn and driveway are school property; thus the Wright Memorial Library is not directly contiguous to the National Register District. Much of this neighborhood was part of the Wright estate, which was converted primarily to municipal and educational uses in the 20t* century. Directly across St. George Street from the Wright Memorial Library to the north, on the site of the former Wright house complex, is the Eben Howes Ellison Building, the main building of the current Duxbury High School (1974). Directly across a driveway to the southeast of the library, the building complex ofthe Duxbury Middle School and Duxbury Elementary (1948, 1959, 1967, and later) continues southwestward in a broad arc, with parking and recreational fields directly south of the library.
At the end of this arc is the first Duxbury High School (1927), which after various other educational uses (last as the Upper Alden School) was renovated as the (third) Duxbury Free Library, opening in 1996. Other neighborhood civic uses continue southwestward along Alden Street, including the John Alden House Museum (privately owned, but open to the public) and the Duxbury Art Complex. Back at the corner of Alden Street and St. George St., directly west of the parking lot on the west side of the Wright Memorial Library, is the town-owned Percy L. Walker Swimming Pool (1974). It replaced the early 19 century Captain Henry P. Packard residence, which served as town offices and the Duxbury police station from 1936 until its demolition.
Exterior: 1909 Building The original Italian Renaissance Revival (with strong elements of Colonial Revival) brick building of the Wright Memorial Library, designed by Boston architect Joseph Everett Chandler, was completed and dedicated in 1909. Built on a raised basement, this highly symmetrical building is a tall single story (Photograph #1). In massing, its 86-foot long front elevation consists of a central square pavilion topped by a dome, flanked by two long side wings. In plan it is a modified Greek cross with a strong cross-axial organization; the two axes meet in the central rotunda. The strong axis of the two narrow (only 20 ft.
wide) side wings crosses a circulation axis formed by the narrow pedimented front portico and the wider rear extension, which originally terminated in a (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number_7 Page3 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Wright Memorial Library Duxbury (Plymouth), MA bow window. The center bays of this bow window are now engaged in a later addition. The original building has a seven-bay front (north) façade, unfenestrated side façades, and two window bays on each end of the south façade that flank the central rear pavilion, now the link between the buildings (Photograph #7). The foundation of the original building is poured concrete faced with light gray Indiana limestone and topped with a stone water table.
The walls are red brick, set in Flemish bond of alternating headers and stretchers, with stone quoins at the corners, and a slightly overhanging stone entablature that supports the eave troughs. Slightly lower in height than the central pavilion, the low-pitched hipped roofs of the wings are covered with copper sheeting and terminate in large rectangular end chimneys with stone caps. Atop the square center pavilion is an octagonal base, which is in turn topped by the rotunda dome, both copper-covered. The edge of the octagonal base and the dome's central oculus are both studded with a spiky ring of anthemion-shaped antefixae (See Photograph #9). Neither the original building nor its addition appears to have a formal cornerstone. In the middle of the front (north) façade, projecting northward from the central square pavilion, is the slightly narrower two-part entry pavilion.
The brick rear enclosed part of this pavilion provides an entry vestibule for the library, while the open front projects forward as a portico. The front entry gable has a triangular pediment supported by pairs of lonic columns - not fluted - on either side (four columns total). The columns stand on square stone bases, and each pair of columns is supported on a stone pier, with the stone front steps descending between the piers. Carved in the frieze below the projecting pediment soffit is the legend "1890 DVXBVRY FREE LIBRARY 1909." The ceiling of the portico is stonework, a soffit of square coffered panels. The north façade of the pavilion wall is coursed ashlar limestone bordered by rectangular stone pilasters. Also coursed ashlar are the front door surround and its projecting hood, which is supported by scroll brackets.
Unfigured flat disk rosettes stud the architrave trim around the recessed doorway. A fixed transom tops the large single- tone ed nel in the thiede above thi barviaycarial the inerribed legendeERIAL. A broad higt ror eigh. stone steps leads down from the front portico to the wide front sidewalk, the lower steps forming a wide apron. Four short electrical lampposts border the front sidewalk, and two more are being swallowed up by the overgrown bushes on either side of the front façade (for a total of eight) (See Photograph #11). These lampposts appear to be old, although they do not appear in a 1937 photograph of the building (See Figure 5). A contemporary metal railing goes up the center of the staircase.
Across the lawn from the Wright Memorial Library, but still on its lot, a post-and-double-rail "Western" style fence lines both sides of the front driveway, and a utility pole in the northwest corner of the lot carries eight strands of cable across the utility corridor at the northern edge of the lot. [For the purposes of this nomination, the eight lampposts are counted as one contributing object. The Western-style fence is one non-contributing object.] The front door and the first-floor windows of the original building all have thermae-derived decorative wooden transoms of square panels: three panels above the front door and paired panels above the windows. The asterisk- shaped central design on each of these panels creates eight triangular lights in each panel (See Photograph #10). The large ground floor windows themselves are all plate glass.
The windows are double hung: the (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number_7 Page4 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Wright Memorial Library Duxbury (Plymouth), MA transoms can drop down slightly, and the plate-glass bottom windows raise slightly. The eared stone window surrounds have a molded edge and wide blank architraves, while the sills rest on stone blocks perched on the stone watertable. A short metal grillwork with Greek key upper and lower borders protects the bottom of each window (roughly the opening created when the plate glass windows are raised full height). The short basement windows (side and rear facades only) are 1/1 contemporary double hung windows, the openings completely covered with metal grillwork of interlocking parabolic curves.
The grillwork is missing from the windows in the west wing, and the northern window on the west wall has been removed for an air conditioner. Pieces of surviving grillwork remain in the furnace room, either from the west wing or the rear extension. Square metal downspouts run from the soffits down to splashblocks at the building corners. Exterior: 1967-69 Addition Although slightly larger than the original building, the Modern rear addition is connected to the original only through the center bays of the rear pavilion, and its design is otherwise as respectful as possible of the original in height, width, and materials (Photograph #2). The flat-roofed Modern-style addition is generally a single story rectangle with a pop-up central clerestory.
Its most distinctive characteristic is a cantilevered projecting roof, with a broad unfigured entablature, sheltering projecting rectangular bays and alcoves. In massing, the northern quarter of the addition where it connects to the rear wing of the original building is the narrowest, primarily a circulation area with broad outside staircase landings, lit by glass walls. South of that, the wider middle half of the addition has a raised rectangular headhouse allowing for a clerestory. This rectangular headhouse, open only to the north and otherwise sheathed in metal, appears to echo the tall octagonal collar Hori ground storf ofthis wint dlesighed as tae er of ten seabrary) is at alevel ind -racite betoveming.
The basement and first floor of the rest of the wing, while the much-smaller upper story "mezzanine" level (designed as the local history room) is tucked below the clerestory extension. The concrete block and poured concrete foundation of the addition supports a steel and concrete frame faced with red brick. The brick in the addition is set in plain alternating stretcher courses, thus differentiating it from the Flemish bond brickwork of the original building. The addition, while thoroughly Modern in its stylistic choices, displays a remarkable level of contextualism in deference to the original building. The eastern façade of the addition reflects the three-part nature of the structure (Photograph #3). The corner quoins of the central pavilion of the rear extension of the original building remain exposed, thus providing a clear line demarcating original and addition.
The brick wall of the addition soon gives way to a plate glass wall surrounding plate glass double doors set in aluminum frames. A wide overhanging cantilevered concrete porch holds regularly spaced square light fixtures in its soffit (several fixtures and covers missing). Simple molded wooden railings on steel posts line the massive concrete landing, and a similar railing goes down the center of the step unit, eight treads to the ground level. Concrete sidewalls of the same height as the landing enclose the sides of the staircase, much like the front portico of the original building. This entry was designed to (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number_7 Page 5 OMB Approval No.
1024-0018 Wright Memorial Library Duxbury (Plymouth), MA accommodate children from the school across the driveway. The widest part of the façade is the center, where three unfenestrated rectangular brick bays are cantilevered out from the side walls. A glass wall surrounds each projecting brick bay, consisting of a continuous plate glass clerestory above; on each side of the brick bays are fixed transoms above, operative crank-out casement windows in the middle, and hopper windows at the bottom. The entire bay unit is protected by a cantilevered roofline with square light fixtures in its broad soffits. The ground floor of the two-story southern end of the eastern façade contains an emergency exit door, with no stoop or sidewalk.
Paired casement windows flank this plate-glass door, one pair to the north and two pairs to the south, as well as a wall-mounted air conditioner, apparently a later addition, below these windows. The second floor east façade is unfenestrated and blank. The southern façade of the building is simple in its design (Photograph #4). On the ground level, a broad central pavilion projects slightly outward from the otherwise blank wall. This projecting central unit holds a continuous ribbon (eight pairs) of operable crank-out casement windows, which have internal screens. The stepped-back second-floor mezzanine level has an identical ribbon of eight paired casement windows, but without the flanking blank sidewalls (due to its narrower width). On both levels, the lintels of the windows connect directly to the wall entablature above.
The western façade of the addition became the main entry and circulation area when the new addition was added to the library. Reflecting the shift in the lives of its patrons, the entire building was reoriented from pedestrian access by way of the street sidewalk to commuting access by way of the parking lot. This façade is similar to the eastern façade, with three definite parts (Photographs #5-8). At the lower southern end, two small single casement windows provide air circulation (for children's library bathrooms) in an otherwise blank wall. Directly to the north in this lower level are two paired double doorways, the first pair (disabled accessible) opening into a vestibule leading to the children's library, and the second pair (not disabled accessible) opening into a half-flight stairway hall into the main addition. The mezzanine level façade above is blank and unfenestrated.
The wider central part of this western façade contains two unfenestrated rectangular brick bays (one narrow and one wide) that are cantilevered out from the side walls. As on the eastern façade, a glass wall surrounds each projecting brick bay, consisting of a continuous plate glass clerestory above; on each side of the brick bays are fixed transoms above, operative crank-out casement windows in the middle, and hopper windows at the bottom. The entire bay unit is protected by a cantilevered roofline with square light fixtures in its broad soffits. Set slightly apart from the building structure, a long concrete wheelchair ramp, which dates from the same build as the rest of the addition, also serves to link this lower entrance with the main entrance above and to the north.
As for the northernmost section of this façade, the exposed corner quoins of the rear extension of the original building provide a clear line demarcating original and the addition (Photographs #7 & 9). The brick frames. A wide overhanging cantilevered concrete porch holds regularly spaced square light fixtures in its soffit. Simple molded wooden railings on steel posts line the massive concrete landing, and go down the center (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number_7 Page 6 Wright Memorial Library Duxbury (Plymouth), MA of the step unit, which descends eight treads to the ground level. These decorative railings also line the sides of the step unit and the outside side of the ramp.
The platform has a small, cantilevered balcony-like passage jutting from its northeast corner to access the book drop set into the brick wall. A 1990 addition, a narrow freestanding aluminum-framed passage completely roofed and sided in glass, juts out onto the landing and provides an airlock for the outermost set of double entry doors. Next to the original building at ground level, a flight of steps, presumably added with the addition (and a necessary reorientation of basement access), lead down to a service entry in the basement of the original building, and let into the side of the rear pavilion. Interior: 1909 Building The floor joists and rafters of this masonry building are wood, and can be seen in the basement and in the attic.
The interior of this now-vacant building, while generally in good shape, shows the effects of the removal of some library fixtures and later, more temporary, uses of the building. These changes make the most recent library uses of some of the rooms unclear. Despite the 1967-69 remodeling, the formal ground-floor interior spaces in the original building are fairly easy to understand, given the survival of copies of architect Joseph Everett Chandler's original plans and the general state of preservation of these spaces. Originally the northern vestibule provided the main access to the building, opening through a second doorway into the main rotunda, with the reading room to the left and the stack room to the right.
Across the rotunda from the vestibule was the rear extension, which included the librarian's office to the west, the stairway to the basement to the east, and beyond, the center oval "trustees and special study room." With the exception of the latter, these spaces are primarily intact. The trustees room was converted into the link with the new addition, and its three southern windows set in a bow wall became three doorways into the 1967-69 wing. On the ground floor in the original building, the most significant interior details remain. The small entry vestibule retains nearly all of its important details. Around the vestibule door to the outside, the original architrave design remains intact, a Greek key pattern bordered with egg-and-dart molding. The massive single door is topped with a hopper transom of three square, thermae-derived panels.
The doorway surround into the rotunda also has an even more elaborate doorframe, its lintel surmounted by a large hooded molding with a dentiled base, which is supported just outside the eared architrave on each side by a pair of large scroll side brackets topped with acanthus leaves. This doorway trim is repeated twice within the rotunda, in the door to the vestibule and the door to the rear hall (the two doorway openings into the side wings are large archways). The tops of the plaster walls have a simple molded cornice, which projects out several inches into the room, at a level several inches below the ceiling, dramatizing the height of the space.
While most of the flooring elsewhere is either carpeting or slate tile installed for the 1967 addition, the entry vestibule still has in place its original mosaic tile, depicting a wreath tied with a ribbon and studded with what appear to be tridents, possibly an allusion to Duxbury's nautical history. The vestibule has black marble baseboards topped with wooden baseboards. In addition, marble block bases, each about a foot square and six inches high, occupy the floor in the center of the east and west side walls. According to an architectural description of the building at the time of (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number_7 Page7 OMB Approval No.
1024-0018 Wright Memorial Library Duxbury (Plymouth), MA its opening, these two bases were topped by "two bronze standards carrying a single electric light at the top and standing on a carved Caen-stone base with a sub-base of black marble resting on the mosaic floor of the vestibule, which has in its center a large memorial wreath." Of this lighting fixture, only the sub-bases remain. The rotunda may be the least-altered interior space. This tall square volume is clipped at the corners, making the room nominally octagonal. The deep segmental arches opening from the rotunda into the neighboring four rooms each have coffered side panels and 5-paneled soffits, each recessed panel painted blue green and filled with a raised golden sixteen-point starburst.
At the top of the plaster walls, a projecting cornice, complete with dentils and modillion blocks, obscures the connection of the dome to its base, allowing for recessed uplighting and making it appear almost to float above the room. The four-sided dome is five coffered panels wide by five panels high on each of the four sides, the panels narrowing considerably toward the top (Photograph #12). At each of the four clipped corners, at a 45-degree angle, another row of panels ascends, bordered on both sides by ribs covered with a stylized organic guilloche, in a pattern of alternating four- and five-petaled rosettes. The bases of these ribs are large acanthus leaves. These ribs and panels resolve at a circular leaf and ribbon band that borders the recessed center oculus. The oculus lantern has a central-spoke design and eight triangular lights.
The flooring of the rotunda is a stone tile dating to the 1960s renovation, although the original black marble baseboards topped with wooden baseboards remain. The two side room wings, the former stack room to the west and the reading room to the east, share a number of details in common (Photograph #13). The original wooden floors remain beneath later carpeting. The original black marble baseboards topped with wooden baseboards also remain. These marble baseboards rise up to support the eared architraves of each of the tall windows. Each room has a barrel-vaulted ceiling, and the plaster walls are topped with a dramatically projecting cornice (with dentil molding) on the three sides not adjacent to the central rotunda.
The western stack room had a false half wall added on its interior when it became an art gallery in 1968, running from the door to the former librarian's office along the southern wall and blocking the middle window. This half wall then turned north and cut off the western end of the stack room. The western end of the stack room, behind the gallery half wall, was further divided into two separate storage spaces, one of which completely covered the mantel wall of the projecting chimney stack with a shelved closet. Whether that chimney stack had a mantel or even a fireplace, or merely served the basement furnace of the original building, is unknown. The center window in the southern wall of this western stack room appears to be intact behind loose panels of the later gallery halfwall; the panels appear be easily removable.
The western wing has ceiling track lighting, dating from its conversion to a gallery. It also has a brass wallplate from this conversion, designating it as the Helen N. Bumpus Room, after its benefactor. The windows in both wings have brackets for roller shades and dowels for tab curtains. The reading room has an equally high level of detail as the stack room, but its eastern mantel wall is exceptional. Bookcases line the room between the windows, although only those on the eastern wall, beside the (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 7 Page 8 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Wright Memorial Library Duxbury (Plymouth), MA mantel, also have black marble bases.
However, the bookcases on the north and south walls appear in early photographs of the reading room, and thus may be original or an early addition. To preserve formal symmetry in this long and narrow room, the architect had installed a blind window, fitted with a mirror, in a matching window frame at the western end of the southern wall; otherwise the window would open into the back stairwell. The four wall sconces and two central chandeliers that light the room have candle-like bulb supports; according to library records, fixtures were added in 1937. The focal point of the reading room is the eastern fireplace. Unlike the dull black marble baseboards, the fireplace hearth and the firebox surround are a polished black marble flecked and veined with gold and rust colors.
The firebox is lined with long, thin Roman bricks on its floor, sides, and back, and contains appropriately oversized brass andirons. The andirons are unmarked. The elaborate outsized fireplace mantel, made of black cypress, has been painted white. It stands over eight feet high, is supported by two free-standing Roman Doric columns, their bases black marble and their capitals studded with rosettes and topped with egg- and-dart moldings. The mantel has five recessed panels, while the entablature bristles with triglyphs with guttae, metopes with alternating rosettes and wreaths, and mutules with guttae alternating with rosettes (Photograph #14). The overmantel is also highly decorated, its edges defined by paired fluted lonic pilasters topped with egg and dart molding and separated by garlands of fruit and flowers.
The centerpiece of the overmantel is a large brass clock with Roman numerals, surrounded by an ornate garland of oak leaves and acorns, which is, in turn, framed by shocks of corn. A ventilation grate sits high above the bookshelf on the southern wall of the chimney stack. Nearby, from two ropes, hang two thumb-sized rectangular brass pulls, marked OPEN and SHUT, for regulating the flue. Three rooms make up the former rear (southern) arm of the cross. The back hallway connects the rotunda to the trustees room, and gives access to the basement stairs. It has a simple ceiling cornice, but both doors have eared architraves. The broad basement staircase descends in a straight flight, turns left (north) on a series of winders, and descends by a brief flight to the basement hallway. The staircase has its original wide molded hand railing, attached to the north wall.
The oddly-shaped original librarian's office between the trustee's room and the stack room currently has a small catering kitchen setup on its western wall, installed in 1968 for receptions for the former gallery space. However, much of this room's original architectural detail remains intact. The flat arch of the doorway from the librarian's office into the stack room is lined with coffered panels with raised centers, including the soffit. The wide architraves on both sides of this doorway are intact, as is the architrave around the doorway into the closet. Surprisingly, the inside doorway surround from the closet into the room also has a formal architrave. The closet ceiling cornice is intact. Later shelves have been added inside the closet and elsewhere, and the floor covered with linoleum squares.
The former trustees room is the only ground floor connection to the rear addition, and so was most changed in the 1960s conversion. This elliptical room still has intact its black cypress projecting cornice (now painted (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number_ 7 Page 9 Wright Memorial Library Duxbury (Plymouth), MA white), and its gently domed ceiling, although a significant light fixture mentioned in early accounts has been replaced by track lighting. The exterior wall of the room, including the brick walls and the stonework architraves around the three former windows, has been preserved as an interior wall in the rear addition, the window casements removed and the tall windows converted into doorways.
The eared interior architraves of these three windows are also intact, although the walls between have been furred out as if they were also gallery walls. Two of the three original doors of the trustees' room (to the librarian's office and to the attic closet) remain in place, each doorway and door slightly curved to match the elliptical shape of the room. The doors have spherical brass doorknobs with teardrop keyholes and pivoting keyhole covers. The central door, which leads through the hall to the rotunda, is missing; this large curved door is said to be in storage. This central doorway is taller, has an eared architrave, and the thermae-derived square paneled transom above the door, designating it as the main connection to the formal rotunda.
In a triangular closet off the northeast corner of the former trustees room, a special built-in ladder, its treads alternating wide and narrow on the left and right sides, allows access into an attic-like space. The small attic itself allows access to the wooden framework supporting the domes above the round rotunda and oval trustees room. The attic closet wall leading into the trustees room also has an elaborate formal molded architrave on the inside wall, as does the closet in the librarian's office. The basement of the original building, according to the Chandler plans, contained a furnace and coal rooms under the west wing, bathrooms under the end of the east wing, and unassigned space elsewhere.
In the proposed layout published in 1967, a magazine and record room, as well as a walk-in vault, were planned under the west wing; a trustees room, restrooms, and custodial space under the east wing; and a furnace room and storage under the center. This basic room configuration, with the exception of the furnace, exists today, and the area is characterized by a combination of, alternately, bare interior foundation walls (brick above poured concrete) and exposed pipes in utilitarian areas, and inexpensive sheetrock partition walls, wood paneling, and drop ceilings in more finished spaces (those with windows). Interior: 1967-69 Addition The basement of the addition was intended to hold book stacks and a few study carrels.
But the published 1965 plans for the expanded library building differ in several ways from the current building configuration, particularly in the shift of the staircase and book elevator, projected for the center of the main room of the addition, to its southern end, probably necessitated at time of construction by the last-minute addition of a second level to the southern wing. Secondly, the furnace and mechanical systems, initially to be relocated to the oval basement space below the oval trustees room when the addition was built, today occupy a room built directly to the south of this space in the new wing, in an area originally meant for study carrels. Both these changes in floor plan appear to date from construction of the addition. To accommodate the furnace, flooring in this room is several feet below that of the rest of the basement.
The resulting cross-section preserves the curved exterior foundation wall of the original building in its northern end. This wall clearly shows the four-part foundation of the original building: concrete footings, topped with a rough fieldstone base, topped with several courses of granite foundation blocks, topped with gray Indiana limestone. South of the furnace room, the large central room in the basement of the addition has concrete and linoleum flooring, two rows of three structural support posts, and built-in closets in its corners. (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number_7 Page 10 OMB Approval No.
1024-0018 Wright Memorial Library Duxbury (Plymouth), MA Due to its lessened formality, more flexible planning, and construction after the period of significance, the rear addition interiors are currently less significant than those of the original building. However, they potentially will achieve significance once they reach the fifty-year mark. According to the plans, the main ground floor section of the addition held, from east to west, a reference and study area, open stacks, and a divided-off staff area, primarily a larger workroom and smaller office for the librarian. Since these areas are primarily open and vacant spaces today, their most recent library uses are hard to determine. Library records indicate that usage patterns shifted several times during the addition's three decades as a library.
The central area has a high ceiling, with the central pop-up clerestory (blind on three sides) supported by the southern stair wall and six small square structural support pillars. These pillars correspond with the support pillars in the basement. The most significant architectural feature of this room is its view of the original building's dome, beautifully framed by a north- facing clerestory window, which also lighted the circulation desk below. The floor is mostly carpeted, although it is stone-tiled near where the circulation desk once stood. The walls in the northern end are mostly glass or exposed brick, either from the original building or from the addition walls. The workroom/office area has carpet and drop ceilings, sheetrock and plaster walls, and a central kitchenette (with upper glass walls) that attaches to a centrally located staff restroom and utility closet.
The low-ceilinged intermediate-level southern wing children's area still has a few shelves and a kitchenette corner, but otherwise is open and vacant. Several of the press-on ceiling tiles applied to its low structural steel ceiling have been removed. The main architectural feature of the room is a wide window seat along the southern wall. The small upper room in the addition, the mezzanine-level local history room, is also low ceilinged and dark paneled, somewhat reminiscent of a ship captain's cabin. It has several built-in bookcases and cabinets. These end rooms, above and below the level of the main room of the library, are accessed by an internal staircase and served by a book elevator. The staircase ascended to an elevated central bookstack in the Foom From tcsaddoon.
clerestory space, added after construction, on a long platform situated atop the wall that separated the main Changes Since Construction The interior of the original building, walls and woodwork, is currently painted an off-white color. Originally the mantelpiece and much of the woodwork was unpainted black cypress with artistic overpainting. An early interior view also shows that the walls were a contrasting darker shade than the ceiling. A speech transcript prepared for the opening of the original building, most likely by Chandler due to its level of detail, notes: The beautiful brown-gray of this wood is relieved by having portions, such as the caps of the columns, the ornaments in metopes and triglyphs picked out in dull gold, while the panels in the cornice over the metopes are of dull blue.
The overmantel holds a large bronze clock with the discs enclosing the Roman numerals also in dull blue, and the wreath carved out of cypress surrounding it with a suggestion of green in the oak leaves and the acorns in gold. The American oak has been used here for the ornament; (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number_7 Page 11 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Wright Memorial Library Duxbury (Plymouth), MA and also the Indian corn which has a faint suggestion of color on the carved wood and the acorns being in gold. The treatment of this mantel follows similar work found at intervals in Italy and France, and is intended to add the interest and warmth which is frequently lacking in strictly classical work.
This black cypress wood is used in other places in the building, such as the doors, and in all the furniture, as well as the standing finish of the trustees' room. The wood elsewhere is painted white.... The soffits of the segmental arches or [of?] the rotunda are filled with a Greek design, in gold, on a soft dull blue background, and these few instances of color, together with the four large walnut Italian chairs, covered with antique red velvet, are the only notes of color, the walls being a soft French gray, except in the trustees' room, where they are covered with gold Japanese paper of inconspicuous design. The ceiling of this oval trustees' room is slightly domed above a black cypress cornice.
While this passage shows that the current building has preserved most of the original details, it also points out important changes, including the painting of the woodwork (with the exception of the soffit panels surrounding the rotunda), and the disappearance of the chairs and other furniture considered an important part of the décor. Condition Generally the building is in good shape. According to the recent structural report, the roof framing of the original building appears to be in good condition. Although the building suffered from roofing problems in the 1980s and 1990s, there is no evidence of current problems. The only structural problems in the original building, according to the structural evaluation, appear to be some bulging and rust jacking of the pre-cast stone at the lintels of the basement windows, and the need to reset the stone steps on the entry stairs.
While the steel frame structure of the addition appears to be in good shape, some decay is visible in the cantilevered bays and soffits of the addition, which show some deterioration of the concrete elements. Archaeological Description While no ancient Native American sites are located on the library property, sites may be present. Eleven Native sites are known in the general area (within one mile). Environmental characteristics of the property represent locational criteria (slope, soil drainage, proximity to wetlands) that are not favorable for the presence of Native sites. The library is located on an excessively drained, level to moderately sloping plain. The nearest wetlands, however, are located well over 1,000 feet from the property, a factor that reduces the overall Native American site sensitivity for this location.
Given the above information, the small size of the parcel (0.69 acres), and construction of two library buildings and their related utilities on the property, a low probability exists for recovering ancient Native American resources on the Wright Memorial Library property. Any ancient resources that may have been present were destroyed by two successive stages of library construction on the property. (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number_ 7 Page12 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Wright Memorial Library Duxbury (Plymouth), MA A moderate to high potential exists for locating significant historic archaeological resources on the library property.
While English settlement occurred in Duxbury by 1626 and the town was chartered as the second town in Plymouth Colony in 1637, the library property remained vacant farmland until ca. 1879. An 1833 map of the town illustrates the library land as vacant land with homes on each side of the property. Structural evidence of farmsteads including residential buildings, barns, and outbuildings may exist from the 17° through 19th century period; however, no specific sites have yet to be identified. Archaeological evidence of occupational-related features (trash pits, privies, wells) may also survive from this early period of potential settlement. Archaeological evidence of barns, outbuildings, and occupational-related features may also exist on the library property that were associated with neighboring properties first shown on the 1833 map of the area.
Structural evidence may also survive from the Duxbury Free Library, the first library located on the nominated property. The origins and date of construction of the first library building are uncertain. The building was originally the Wright Guest House, part of the large George W. Wright estate that stood on the north side of St. George Street opposite the site of the present library. Archaeological evidence of barns, outbuildings, and occupational-related features may survive associated with the Duxbury Free Library and its earlier use as a residence. Houses continued to exist on both sides of the library property on the 1879 and 1903 map of the area. The Duxbury Free Library continued to exist on the property until shortly before the Wright Memorial Library was built in 1909.
Structural evidence of barns, stables, outbuildings, utilities, and occupational-related features may exist related to land use associated with the existing library. Any archaeological resources on the property that pre-date 1090 may have been destroyed by construction of the existing library, related utilities, and landscaping. (end) Wright Memorial Library Name of Property 8. Statement of Significance