What’s the Ultimate Buy for the Bookish Type? This Old Library in Connecticut!

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Serious bibliophiles dream of one day turning one of the rooms in their house into a library, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, a comfy chair, and a cozy fireplace to read by.

A buyer in Madison, CT, skipped all that and bought an entire library. This week, the historic East River Reading Room went into contract, with an asking price of $148,000. Interest in the building, which was constructed in 1874, was intense.

“Our agent was happy to finally get a contract on it, because he had been showing it three times a day. It’s only been listed for three weeks,” East River Reading Room board member Christopher Scranton says.

The historic reading room hadn’t attracted much attention before its arrival on the market, he says. “As soon as the agent’s sign went up, people noticed it. It was that kind of building where most people in the neighborhood weren’t even aware of it until the sign went up.”

For its first 100 years, the Reading Room served as the central meeting hall for the nearby East River neighborhood. In addition to housing 1,500 books and periodicals (all available to borrow), the place has hosted dances, fundraisers, concerts, community dinners, a sewing club, an annual neighborhood Christmas party, and a group called the Sunshine Society (a club of three women who got together to spread happiness).

Interior

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Stage

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Bookshelves

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Kitchen

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But in recent years, the 143-year-old building saw a decline in usage. The nonprofit board in charge of maintaining the building knew it would need a major face-lift. Five years ago, the board threw the last neighborhood Christmas party there, and since then, its doors rarely opened to the public.

“People lost interest,” Scranton says. “The building just sat there and never got used for anything. We finally decided it was time to give it a new life.”

The new owners have agreed to maintain the integrity of the building’s main room. Scranton says it sounds like they’re interested in converting the Reading Room into a house, and might possibly build an addition on the back with modern conveniences. The big one? The Reading Room doesn’t have a conventional bathroom (the listing describes it as “an indoor outhouse”), and there’s no place to shower. There are no bedrooms, either.

The board plans to donate most of the profits from the building’s sale to the renovation of the nearby E.C. Scranton Memorial Library. Once complete, the library plans to design an East River Reading Room section, using artifacts from the original building.

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