I love libraries. For a professional lifetime, I’ve been plotting ways to make them ever better. I didn’t think much about how they looked as I passed by; they were mostly non-wood monuments with pillars, steps, and/or lions (and more recently glass) or they were architects’ fancies. And that was okay, until I saw Jamie Wyeth’s exterior drawing of the proposed Jackson Memorial library in Tenants Harbor. It is a classic Maine house, it is local, and it is just right.
Fig. #46. My neighbor Harry’s house from the sea: c.1861 lovely with few ”amendments” but classic lines and a garage across the street. I don’t have a picture of Ginny’s house, at c.1831 Harry’s slightly older next-door neighbor house, but it has an ell and attached barns.
Jamie Wyeth’s painting, a treasure in itself, is of a classic Maine house with two fireplace chimneys, dog-house dormers (“They’re gable dormers,” my son says, but my neighbor Harry always thought they looked like doghouses.), big brass portholes (homage to the sea?), parts that could be finished later if money is tight or need is light, like enduring Maine houses, and maybe my favorite part, a grounded cupola without a widow’s walk, but with a copper roof and windows all around, a reminder that libraries are windows on the greater world, just like the returning seafarers.
Thomas Hubka’s Big House, Little House, Back House Barn is the only book I know which addresses the homegrown architecture of Maine, but I don’t know if any local houses are included. The very good news is that a Tenants Harbor neighbor’s daughter is an architectural historian interested in local (vernacular) architectures of many places, including Maine, so I’m looking forward to her possibly forthcoming book.
Fig. #49. Harry’s house from the road: The attached “boathouse” makes an ell and a patio. The garage across the street is long moved, thanks to great new neighbors.
How sensible, then, to cloak a Maine harbor library in a classic Maine house with seafaring amendments and happy memories. This is a great idea. I hope it happens.
Hello. What a lovely find. My SIL told me about this blog. I live in Minneosta, by Duluth, and my niece lives in Tenants Harbor and works at the library.
I have visited Maine and loved it, mainly because it reminded me so much of Northern Minnesota. Standing on the shore of the ocean struck me so much like standing on the shore of Lake Superior.
I say, welcome back to MN.