Heywood, Levi, Memorial Library Building

The Heywood Memorial Library Building, now used as a museum, is a one-and-one-halt storey structure of Queen Anne style design with an asymmetrical floor plan and asymmetrical elevations. The building rises from a basement of rock-faced, granite ashlar to steeply pitched roofs which are covered with slate tiles and trimmed with a terra-cotta cresting along the ridges. Above the basement, the building is faced with red, pressed brick and trimmed with both brown sandstone and terra- cotta. The facade is dominated by a gabled central pavilion (slightly east of center) which is flanked by a semi-octagonal bay (west) and a blank wall (east). The central pavilion is symmetrical containing a center entry flanked on each side by one window and surmounted by two windows.

The entry consists of two, parallel oak doors surmounted by an arched transom of stained art glass. Set in front of the entry is an open porch, framed by brick piers and three elevations. Granite steps provide access to the porch's west elevation, while the east and south elevations are blocked by panelled railings of sandstone. At the extrados of the porch's south arch are two panels of terra-cotta bearing elaborate foliate decoration and two placques embossed with the year in which the building's construction began, 1885. Directly above the porch, paired brick pilasters rise in two stages to a sandstone entablature/cornice bearing the words "MEMORIAL BUILDING" Set between these pairs of pilasters are two windows each of which contains double-hung sash are glazed with stained art-glass.

an arched transom, all of which These arched windows are framed by brick pilasters with stylized Ionic capitals, brick arches with keystones and small terra-cotta panels. Above the entablature/cornice is a triangu- lar terra-cotta panel which occupies a portion of the gable.

/ARCHITECT Fuller & Delano STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE lhe Levi Heywood Memorial Library Bullding, now the Gardner Museum, possesses integrity of location, design, setting, materials and workman- ship; additionally, the building possesses historical associations with the city's leading family of industrialists, who were of major importance in Gardner's development. Begun in 1885 and completed in 1886, the Heywood Memorial Library was designed by the regionally prominent firm of Fuller and Delano of Worcester. The building's fine carved stone, terra-cotta panels, "free Renaissance' ornamentation and stained glass, remain intact and are re- presentative of the most sophisticated level of Queen Anne design in Cen- tral Massachusetts.

Further, the building's interior retains original oak woodwork, mantel-pieces, and stained glass, bearing only minor alterations. Levi Heywood, whom the building memorializes, was a native of Gardner the grandson of Seth Heywood, one of the community's earliest settlers. Levi Heywood was especially important in the development of the city's chair industry, having introduced innovative manufacturing machinery and business practices which helped to make chair manufacturing Gardner's most important industry. Heywood was also active in local politics, serving as Gardner's representative to a state constitutional convention (1853) and as the city's representative to the General Court (1871).

Heywood was active in local banking and in the establishment of recreational parkland at Gardner's Crystal Lake. Although a library society had existed in Gardner since 1841, prior t February 4, 1886, when the Heywood Memorial Library was given to the city by Calvin Heywood, Helen Greenwood and Alvin Greenwood, Gardner had had no library building. Donations for the furnishing of the Heywood Library were made by Mrs. Fanny B. Heywood, Mrs. H.S. Stratton, Miss Martha W. Hey wood and Charles Heywood, all of whom also contributed to the endowment of a reading room.