The Cazenovia Public Library
The elegant Greek Revival house at 100 Albany Street has been the home of the Cazenovia Public Library for 125 years. It was built in the mid 1830s for John Williams, a successful manufacturer and merchant whose other local surviving structures include the Lincklaen House Hotel and the mercantile buildings on either side of the Mill Street corner. The house, with its elegant colonnade, originally sported a flat roof surrounded by a balustrade. This feature provides a clue to the identity of the architect as it was one of three columned Greek Revival style dwellings in Cazenovia with flat roofs.

The Century House located at Memorial Park was built in 1841, designed by New York architect and New Woodstock native Calvin Pollard. It seems likely that the Williams House and the other formerly flat-roofed Greek Revival dwelling on Sullivan Street, now known as Joy Hall, may also have been designed by Pollard.

After Williams’ death in 1853, the house passed to Edward Mortimer Holmes, merchant and connoisseur of fine horses. Holmes commenced to improve the property by adding a new pitched roof and remodeling the interior in the more florid Italianate style popular in the years preceding the Civil War.

The exterior and interior details remained intact until 1996, when the rear wing of the house was razed to make way for the new library building.

The house also retains its original outbuildings, an elegant horse barn and a handsome well house. While many village homes still preserve their own horse barns, well houses are a rarity. In the days before public water, every home had its own well and some sort of structure to cover it. Today, only one other architecturally significant example is known, located on the post office lot, formerly the site of a village estate called the Homestead.

In addition to being an important community resource the Cazenovia Public Library complex provides a window onto the community’s architectural past.