The Carnegie, the newly rebranded name for the old Carnegie Library on North Water street in Edgartown, is set for a grand reopening next month, proving the old idiom “everything old is new again.”
In contrast to the cramped and harshly lighted old library, the renovated building is marked by open spaces flooded with natural light.
Where the reference library once stood are new reading rooms which fulfill the building’s mandated mission as a library. Where book stacks once stood behind a circulation desk is a new balcony that looks down to the floor below. On the lower level, the former mildew-plagued children’s room has been transformed to a large tabletop map of the Island showing where the Vineyard Trust — formerly the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust — buildings are located.
The trust’s latest landmark acquisition is destined to be a must-see site for Islanders and visitors alike this summer.
Originally conceived as a visitor center with an emphasis on the Island’s maritime heritage, the concept later evolved into a way to highlight Island history through the landscapes and landmarks preserved by the organization, Vineyard Trust executive director and chief executive officer Funi Burdick said.
“We look at how people have been inspired over the centuries, as entrepreneurs, as artists, as painters, as writers, and hopefully you come here and you’re inspired too,” she said. “That’s really the idea, in essence, for the whole building.” The building was constructed in 1904 with a gift from philanthropist and Edgartown summer resident Andrew Carnegie, on land donated by Caroline Osborn Warren, the daughter of a whaling captain.
The most striking feature of the new renovation is the so-called hole in the floor.
“I came up with the idea of cutting a hole in the floor,” said Ms. Burdick, who is trained as an architect. “We were just going to do the first floor and we were going to leave the lower level to the future. By cutting this big hole in the floor it activates the space and makes this in unison.”
Though the rear of the building was compromised by additions built over the years, Ms. Burdick said the hardest part of the project was not the extensive new construction, but envisioning the use and narrative of the stately old building.
Now, at every turn, around every corner gleaming new glass display cases contain historical artifacts collected over the past year of the project.
A painting and the glass palette of Island artist Ray Ellis sit in the reading room.
An enormous trypot used for refining whale oil rests near the jaw of a right whale and scrimshaw carved from whale’s tooth.
A toy rocking horse made by Charles Dare, the man who made the horses for the Flying Horses Carousel, highlights another display.
An old typewriter and lead type show how the Vineyard Gazette was published in years gone by.
The artifacts all help illustrate the Vineyard Trust properties, and are meant to encourage visitors to go out and visit the preserved buildings and landmarks.
“That’s the part we want people to come into this building and understand,” Ms. Burdick said. “It’s not just acquiring landmarks, but it’s acquiring endangered landmarks, ones that other people don’t want to acquire and restore and respect. Then our job is how do we put them back, how do we put them back into the community. As you travel through this you’ll learn about the history but you will also understand our mission and our work.”
The displays are intended to give visitors a true sense of the people who molded the history of Martha’s Vineyard, as well as the sensibilities of those who live here in the present.
“I’m hoping will really understand the unique quality of those people who choose to make this place home and really respond to the environment, the collective thinking, to the changing needs of a dynamic community,” Ms. Burdick said. “If we don’t preserve the past and understand how to incorporate historic artifacts and landscapes and buildings into our modern day culture, we’ll really dilute our experiences of where we live.”
The building will reopen on June 23 with an 11 a.m. dedication ceremony. The exhibits will be open Wednesday through Sunday until October, and then on selected dates during the holiday season.
There is no entry fee, though donations will be accepted, and the Vineyard Trust expects to offset some of the operating costs with proceeds from a gift shop stocked with the wares of Island artists and artisans.
Though it took dozens of people and a lot of long hard hours to complete the new construction and displays, it was really an easy project in one respect, Ms. Burdick said.
“Sometimes you work in an environment where there isn’t a lot of support for an idea. You have an idea, and you try to make that happen. The difference here was, people really wanted this to happen. When you had an idea, people embraced it, and people donated to it. There was so much interest and enthusiasm. That makes a project easy.”
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