The Norfolk Library (Connecticut)
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The Norfolk Library
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| Location | 9 Greenwoods Road East Norfolk, Connecticut |
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| Built | 1888-89 |
| Architect | George Keller |
| Architectural style | Shingle Style |
| Part of | Norfolk Historic District (#79003749) |
| Designated CP | October 15, 1979 |
The Norfolk Library, also known as Eldridge Memorial Library, is a library at 9 Greenwoods Road East in Norfolk, Connecticut. The Norfolk Library is a private charitable organization, but the facility is open to the general public. Designed by architect George Keller in 1888, and greatly expanded by Keller in 1911, it is an outstanding example of Shingle Style architecture. The building is a contributing property in the Norfolk Historic District.
Isabella Eldridge donated the building as a memorial to her parents. It was intended to be fireproof – hence, the use of tile shingles rather than wood ones – and serve as both a public library and a community meetingplace.
Keller, of Hartford, Connecticut, is best remembered as an architect of war memorials. Although the datestone over the porch says "1888," the building opened on March 6, 1889.
The building's first story is faced with red Longmeadow, Massachusetts freestone. The second-story walls and third-story gables are faced with fish-scale tile shingles. The street (south) facade is asymmetrical and features a single, great gable that continues down to join the porch roof, a two-story half-turret, a small second-story balcony, and five first-story windows with stained-glass upper panes that light the circulation desk. The original Spanish tile roof, the same color as the wall tiles, has been replaced with asphalt shingles. The half-turret's conical roof retains its Spanish tile.
The library room is a long two-and-a-half-story space with a wood barrel-vaulted ceiling. It is flanked by two-story, red-oak book stacks to the east and west. A second-story gallery with red-oak balustrade wraps around three sides of it.
A description from 1900:
"The building was designed by Mr. George Keller, a noted architect of Hartford, Ct; is eighty-six by forty-five feet upon the ground, and two stories high ... The first floor contains a reception hall, a reading room, a conversation room, and the library room proper. This room, entered through the reception room, fills the height and breadth of the entire building, and is crowned with an imposing arch. As one enters the hall a fine bronze tablet upon the wall opposite meets the eye, with the inscription:
IN REVERENT MEMORY OF JOSEPH AND SARAH ELDRIDGE"
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