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The West End Library, now the Unionville Museum, is a historic library and museum building at 15 School Street in the Unionville village of
Farmington, Connecticut Farmington is a town in Hartford County in the Farmington Valley area of central Connecticut in the United States. The population was 26,712 at the 2020 census. It sits 10 miles west of Hartford at the hub of major I-84 interchanges, 20 miles ...
. The
Renaissance style Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought a ...
building was designed by
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
architect Edward Tilton, and completed in 1917 with funding from
Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...
. The building was added to the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 2000.


Description and history

Farmington's former West End Library is located in the center of Unionville village, on the south side of School Street west of Connecticut Route 177. It is a single-story building, with load-bearing brick walls finished in stucco, and a red tile roof. Its main facade is seven bays wide, with a projecting gable-roofed entry portico in the center bay. The other bays have tall round-arch windows, with small rectangular transom-like windows set above, just below the roofline, with diamond grillwork. The Unionville Library Association was founded in 1902, with its collection occupying a small room in Farmington's town hall, then located nearby this building's site. It grew rapidly in size and usage, and the need for a larger and more permanent home was evident. This building was built in 1917, funded in part by a grant of $8,500 from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Designed by Edward Tilton, it is based in simplified and reduced form on the McKim Building of the
Boston Public Library The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also the Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse'') of the Commonwea ...
. In the 1960s library services moved from the building. It was then used by the town as a senior center for a time, and in 1984 the building opened as a museum.


See also

*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Hartford County, Connecticut __NOTOC__ This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places designations in Hartford County, Connecticut. This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Hartford Coun ...
* List of Carnegie libraries in Connecticut


References


External links


Unionville Museum
- official site {{National Register of Historic Places Libraries in Hartford County, Connecticut Museums in Hartford County, Connecticut Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut Renaissance Revival architecture in Connecticut Library buildings completed in 1917 Farmington, Connecticut National Register of Historic Places in Hartford County, Connecticut Carnegie libraries in Connecticut