Granville Public Library (1902)

The libraries designed by Hartford architect George Keller are considered by some to be the high points of his career. Like the libraries he had designed earlier for the Connecticut communities of Norfolk (1888) and Ansonia (1892), Keller’s plan for the Granville Public Library is in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. The building, which opened in 1902, features a rubble foundation, yellow brick construction with red sandstone, round tower and slate hip roof. Keller may have been influenced by the design of the library in Shelton, Connecticut, designed by Charles T. Beardsley, which also used yellow brick and was in turn influenced by Keller’s Ansonia Library. The Granville Library was founded after Milton B. Whitney of Westville, originally from Granville, donated $5,000, a sum which was added to by donations solicited by the women of the Granville Literary Club.