Taylor Memorial Library started with a love story. In 1962, Fred Taylor donated his 1921 family home to the Scarborough Public Library Board as a memorial to his first wife, Florence Nightengale Taylor. After twenty-two years, the house near Kingston and Warden was demolished and the current building opened in 1985 on the same site.
When I visited Taylor Memorial for the second time last week, I realized that I had previously overlooked a black and white photograph of Florence Taylor in a long formal gown. A lovely flowering vine curled around her photo in the white space between the picture and the frame. To the right of Florence’s picture were framed photographs of Fred Taylor and his second wife, Kate.
I was sorry that the Taylor’s original house no longer remained because I would like to have seen it. The next best thing was a painting of the 1921 home which hung above the east side of the fireplace. The artist, Nikita Marner, presented the viewer with a tall fairy-tale cottage distinguished by a timbered exterior.
Before I knew that Taylor Memorial had once been an actual house, it had struck me that the current edifice looked more home-like than many of the other TPL branches. On my previous visit, I wrote in my notebook that Taylor Memorial’s exterior was like “a slightly official-looking cottage.”
As I took in the library’s interior, I was impressed by how faithfully it upheld the spirit of Fred Taylor’s priceless gift: a home as a sanctuary for quiet reading and reflection. I hope Fred would have been pleased that I found Taylor Memorial to be the least institutional of all the seventy-four branches I’ve visited so far. Each piece of furniture was just right for settling down for a good long read, from the lawn chairs on the covered patio by the garden, to the comfortable high-backed armchairs in front of the fireplace, to a semi-circular cushioned window seat in front of a bay window.
Three elegant paintings of the Scarborough Bluffs (one of the original cliffs in Yorkshire and the others of the local Ontario version) adorned the interior space. They reminded me that the real Lake Ontario beckoned just a few minutes drive from the library.
On the south wall, an arched stained glass window lent a sacred element to the relaxing atmosphere. Possibly inspired by the floral embellishments on Florence Taylor’s photo, glass butterflies and a few birds fluttered attendance on a flowering vine which filled most of the window.
With so many high windows, refined paintings, garden views, and inviting surfaces to sit on, Taylor Memorial branch invited peace into my soul. If you are a visionary or just someone who loves to read in a state of restful abandon, I highly recommend a pilgrimage to this harmonious place. Its aesthetics of lounging are remarkable and bear testimony to the loving spirit of a generous library benefactor, Fred Taylor.
