Handley Library Preview

Designed specifically to be a public library, the Handley Library in Winchester Virginia is named for its benefactor, Judge John Handley of Scranton, Pennsylvania (1835-1895). Although Judge Handley never lived in Winchester, he became interested in the young city when he accepted a friend’s invitation to visit in 1869. He visited many times in the following years and upon his death left a bequest valued at more than a million dollars to the City of Winchester. Part of the bequest was designated to build a library. He is buried here in Winchester in the Mt. Hebron Cemetery.

Built in the Beaux Arts Style popular at the time, the library’s design was meant to represent an open book, the central rotunda being the spine and the two wings its open covers. The rotunda is crowned on the outside with a copper-clad dome and is lined with stained glass on the inside. With a project cost of approximately $150,000 (today $3,000,000) construction was completed in 1910. In 1913, after 3 years of purchasing and cataloging books, the library opened to the public with 2,300 books. Today, the library contains over 100,000 circulating items.

In 1979 an addition was completed that provided additional space for the adult collection and information services, as well as the creation of a children’s room and a dedicated archives room. This was followed by a major renovation project in 2001. Some of the work of the renovation included cleaning and repairing the 5,000 pieces of stained glass in the dome and restoring and rewiring all the original 1913 light fixtures, along with the 400 lb. brass chain holding up the rotunda chandelier. Among the items uncovered by the renovation were 16 ft. long pieces of heart pine flooring hidden under old carpeting, Thomas Edison patent numbers on the light fixtures, and matches trapped in the terrazzo flooring from the original workmen.

You are in the main entrance to the library. Originally designed as a full-service library (patrons would have to request items because they were not allowed into the stacks) there was only a service window where we now have an entryway to the circulation desks. But before the library was opened to the public, the first librarian, Charles Vernon Eddy, changed to an open-stack method and had an octagonal circulation desk created for the center of the rotunda. That desk was later removed, and its wood panels reused within the library.

If you look up, you will see the glass dome that is below the exterior copper dome. It is made of more than 5,000 individual panes of stained glass and pays tribute to the art of printing with its 4 large rondels containing printers marks: the anchor with dolphin, the dragon, the pelican, and the monk near a tree. The wooden spiral staircases on either side of the entrance are original and continue up to the third floor. The glass-floored mezzanine above the circulation desks holds several historic magazine collections.

The West Reading Room is original to the building as are the chairs for which we still have the invoice. The lamps are reproductions of the original lamps based on a lamp found in a storage area.

This intimate, semicircular area begins the 1979 addition and links it stylistically to the original building.

The circulation desks are built into the structure that holds up the building and are located under the glass floor of the mezzanine level above. Glass flooring was used to allow light into this area from the floor above. The metal stairways that you can see were used to gather and return books prior to the 1979 addition and elevator, and went from the auditorium in the lower level up to the third floor.

You are now in the East Reading Room. The room and the tables you see are original, as are the quarter sawn oak floorboards. Birds could once enter the building through the large fireplace, and it was someone’s job to chase them out at night before the library closed.

The study room on your left was the original location of one of the restrooms. Today it provides a quiet place to work or study and contains images of the author Willa Cather, along with prints of paintings illustrating themes from several of her books. Willa Cather was born in Gore, VA, a few miles west of Winchester. Further on is today’s Library Shop which was the original Director’s Office. If you look down at the terrazzo floors you might see the remains of matches, believed to have been dropped by the original workers laying the floor.

You can see the interior on a guided tour

The auditorium is original to the building. It can seat about 120 people. There is a well under the stage that was created during the building’s construction to address the high water table of the site. The auditorium was later named the “Robinson” auditorium in honor of Dorothy (Dottie) Robinson and her generous bequest to the library.

Walk to the far end of the center gallery.

The Archives houses a historical collection relating to the northern Shenandoah Valley from the 1730s to the present with extensive Civil War and genealogical resources. Highlights of the collection include the Bishop James Madison Map of 1807 showing Virginia extending to the Ohio River, and prints of the Jedediah Hotchkiss (1827-1899) maps of the Civil War. Stewart Bell, Jr. for whom the Archives was named was a prominent citizen of Winchester, a former mayor, a historian and a strong supporter of the library.

You can see the interior on a guided tour

Thanks to an anonymous donation, a storage room for old books and newspapers was renovated to become a meeting room that could provide gallery space for art or a location for children’s story time programs. The donation was made in honor of Harry Benham, Jr. a local attorney and businessman who was the founding chair of the Library Board.

The lower flight of stairs includes images depicting the history of the Handley Library. Leading up to the children's department, the second flight of stairs has murals depicting characters from famous children's books.

This area is part of the original building. The wooden spaces in the floor are where bookshelves were once located, and the glass in the floor allowed light into the area below. The two dumbwaiters were used to move books between floors before an elevator was installed in the 1979 Addition. Here again, you can see the black metal spiral staircases that went from the auditorium to the third floor.

Located in the 1979 addition, it contains numerous donated art pieces, and its computer desk is in the shape of a question mark.

This was just a brief overview of the Handley Library, that was once called “the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen” by Thomas Edison. For more in-depth and fascinating history and images, see the book Handley Regional Library, the first One Hundred Years. Copies of this book and other “Handley Library” memorabilia may be purchased in the Library Shop. Thank you for visiting the Handley Library, a unique building, and a very special place of information and imagination.