When you move to a new place, sooner or later you make your way to the public library.
A small brick building, the Pittsboro Memorial Library. Its front room held the books and staff desk while a back room served as meeting space. It was the smallest library I had ever seen, a busy place, overcrowded.
The community college library, a half-mile away, was also too small.
Forces merged to create ideas, donate land, find funding, and by some miracle in the middle of a recession, a beautiful new library opened 20 months ago. It’s one-half mile from the B&B, best entered from the traffic circle on 87.
The building is a work of art: soaring arc roof, sweep of windows, open interior. Twenty-five thousand square feet, a cathedral of space and light.
Artwork was integrated into the design (next three photos by Kristan Schawgo). John Amero created a colorful metal Patio Gate, all swirls and jewels.
Siglinda Scarpa’s ceramic tiles decorate the two fireplaces.
The circular wall of a children’s reading room is a 360-degree mural by Michael Brown: gliding children fly through the sky over castles and the sea.
There’s a bank of computers, of course. Plenty of reading nooks. A spacious children’s area for weekly story time. Community gathering spaces. At one end, a row of small rooms for studying, for small meetings.
I visit weekly to check out books to read, take my grandchildren to their events, browse the collections, sequester myself in a small room to write, always thankful to those who had the visions and made it happen, for this peaceful, creative, light-filled space.
