The Morrow Library

The Library is surrounded by a later addition built in 1967. The original part could be classified as a Colonial Revival or Neoclassical revival, and it is a masonry, hipped roof block, that faces Third Avenue. This façade has a full height entry porch, with a 4 column entrance with a classical pediment. However, the capitals of the columns do not belong to the orthodox classical order, as they include tobacco leafs instead of the acanthus leaf motif. This is a clear influence of the tobacco capital that Benjamin Latrobe introduced at the US Capitol in Washington DC, as an evocation of a Native American natural form in the early 1800’s.

The main façade has two levels of fenestration, distributed in 4 bays at each side of the entrance porch. The ground floor has rectangular, multi paneled windows. The upper floor has a recessed arcade which frames rectangular, multipaneled windows with half arched lights. The hipped roof is crowned at its main axis with a square tower and a cupola at the top, a typical feature of the Federal and Georgian Styles. The roof has rectangular, pedimented dormers with 6-pane wndows. All the building is made in carefully laid red brick masonry.

The doorway has a notable surround, with a broken pediment, borrowed from the Georgian style, very similar as the doorway of the William Byrd House at Westover, Charles City County, Va., of 1750. The southern façade, now covered by the additions, had almost the same form of the northern one, but without the classical full height porch. It was divided in 5 bays; the central one had an entrance with a doorway very similar to the existing one. Two protruding corner blocks marked the extremes of this building, with a paneled window with half arched lights. This part of the roof had 5 shed dormers. See photo (Turner) p. 102, of the south façade, 1964

The 1967 addition, that surrounds the building from its back, is a modern version made in red brick masonry that echoes the fenestration of the main façade that fronts the 3rd. Avenue. Of course, the full height classical porch of the north façade has been replaced in the south side by a slightly protruded masonry volume, with five full height arches, with paneled windows in the inside. The Ground floor entrances are marked by three stone rendered arches, continued with jambs that have the same thickness and soft surface rendering, in a simpler, modern manner, avoiding any classical ornament.



Two sides of blind arcades, made in grey stone with smooth finishing, completes the five bays entrance. A suggestive Plaza provides a tranquil place to stay outside. The huge bell that hangs at the Plaza center is related, was posed in 1983 and commemorates the donors of the bronze cast carillon bells, which stands at the top of the cupola of the original building, Mr. Clark and Marie A. Thornburg. The bronze bells were cast at Paccard Frères, from Annecy, France. The 16 bell carillon was installed in 1983.