Bedford limestone and a tetrastyle portico mark the Carnegie Library, the graceful Classical Revival building at the south end of Gratz Park. Built in 1905 and described as a 1906-built structure, this handsome library was designed by architect Herman L. Rowe and fashioned of Bedford limestone. Notice the tetrastyle portico that crowns the entrance — a hint of the building’s civic purpose.
It cost $75,000 to build, of which $60,000 was funded by the Carnegie Foundation, making it one of the 2,500 public libraries Andrew Carnegie helped create between 1883 and 1929. For most of the twentieth century it served as Lexington’s main library until 1989, later supplanted by a new large central library on East Main Street. The building reopened as the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in 1992 and today is home to the Carnegie Center.
It is listed as a contributing building in the Gratz Park Historic District, which was entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and includes 18 buildings, and it appears on the National Park Service travel itinerary “Lexington, Kentucky: Athens of the West” as one of 29 recommended sites. Notice the Bedford limestone facade, one of twenty-five hundred libraries Andrew Carnegie helped fund nationwide.