Lenox Library

CONTACT:

18 Main St.
Lenox, MA 01240
413-637-2630

Denis Lesieur, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

This is not just a small-town library, but a monument to Massachusetts’ history, culture, and -- philanthropy. Built as a courthouse in 1815, it was purchased (the county seat had moved) in 1871 by Adeline Schermerhorn, a summer resident, for the Lenox Library Association, founded in 1856. Her son added a wing for town meetings. It was used by Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fanny Kemble, and Edith Wharton, and leading philanthropic summer people: Vanderbilts, Sloans, Morgans, and Westinghouses. Andrew Carnegie electrified it in 1918. Wharton’s novel "Summer" describes its centrality in town life; Normal Rockwell met his (later) bride there. Special research collections were donated, which attract scholars internationally (annual visitation: 56,000). Serge Koussevitsky endowed music collections and concerts; Edwin Hale Lincoln donated his photography collection (745 glass plates of the summer "cottages") and personal library (including his own very rare Wildflowers of New England (12 vols.,1904). All this was philanthropy -- town funding began in 1989! But Lenox is small, the building needs maintenance, and the Library Association approaches its sesquicentennial. A $2 million capital campaign is under way to repair and restore, and we should like to help them find donors. Wouldn’t you enjoy participating in this grand tradition and celebration?

(2003: CULTURE: Education: Informal: Historic Preservation)