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Carnegie Library at 77 Gore St. E. (now called the McMillan Building) The building was designed in red and yellow (buff) brick, with rough-cut stone and wood detailing, by Mr. Darling, a Toronto architect, and was modeled after the head office of the Bank of Montreal in Toronto, now the home of the Hockey Hall of Fame. This jewel of a building is a four-sided, three-storey building with a corner door at Gore and Basin Streets. A dominant feature on each side is the decorative boxed gables with overhanging eaves, decorative brackets and a circular window. The flat roof has a yellow brick trim, including a continuation of the columns from the first floor, or basement floor, which has a large cut-stone top and foundations. There are five yellow brick columns on each side. These have a cut-stone top and except where the gables are, run from the first to the third floors. From the corner of Gore and Basin streets, six stone steps lead to the main inset doorway, flanked by two yellow brick square columns with a cut stone trim above and below. The doorway has yellow brick and radiating voussoirs, while the two wooden doors are square-headed, each with a panel of glass. Above the doorway, on the second floor, there is a half-circle window with red brick detailing, a triple cut-stone keystone and a cut-stone sill. Between the second and first floor is a decorative cream-coloured frieze. Originally, the basement contained children’s books and quarters for the caretaker, while the second floor held all other books and a reading room. The third floor had a meeting room and many smaller rooms where the Archibald Campbell Museum exhibits were displayed until moved to Matheson House, the present home of the Perth Museum, in 1965. In January 1980 a fire destroyed the building contents, but not the structure. The town of Perth designated it as an historical building on January 27, 1981. In 1982 Gordon McMillan purchased the ruins, with only the exterior walls intact and restored the building. The interior changed slightly to suit current building codes and present requirements. From 1984 it has housed a succession of commercial enterprises.
Photograph, circa 1910, from the archives of the Perth
Museum (Don Little Collection) |