THE LIBRARY

The library is multi purpose room. It serves its traditional purpose as a library with 23 foot high ceilings and shelving from floor to ceiling. A moveable ladder is on each side of the room runs on rails and permits access all the way to the top.

One section of the library (not shown) is dedicated to traditional file storage which provides the library’s second function.

A glass conference table with eight conference chairs resides at one end of the library which is often used as a conference room for business or other meetings. This is the library's third function.

A state of the art computer office occupies one corner of the library, which is the library's fourth role.

The library has a balcony with pull down stairs. The balcony is also accessible from an elevator around the corner from the library entrance. Although the balcony can be used for a variety of purposes, it is currently used to store over 3,500 commercial movies. Serving as a video collection facility is the library's fifth function.

Library Balcony with shelves fpe movie collections.

Pull down stairway to balcony as an alternative entrance to using the elevator.

This typical looking closet door is actually the an elevator foe access to the "Secret Room" and library balcony.

Interior of the elevator after closet door pictured above is opened. Exiting the elevator is done from the opposite side of the ground floor elevator entrance.

When the home was first constructed, the area behind the library was intended to be used for air conditioning equipment. During construction, it was determined to move the AC equipment elsewhere, leaving an additional 800 sq. ft. The closet (pictured above) was converted into an elevator and a pull down stairway was added to the library balcony, which backed up to this new room. Library shelving was replaced with a doorway, but the front façade of the doorway was made to appear as ordinary shelving. When closed, there was no way of knowing that a large room existed behind fake shelving. Thus came the name “secret room” which we still is use today.

Interior picture of secret room. It's uses have varied from a video game room to a hobby room to a storage room, etc.

Fake library shelves hiding secret room.

Open secret room door provides an alternative to the elevator.

Door from secret room (dark area in background) provides entrance to library balcony.

A somewhat comical experience should be noted. An automated system was to enable everything to with the push of a button. About a week prior to moving into the house this clever contraption was being demonstrated but things did not go as planned. The pull down stairs raised just in time to go plowing through the wood of the fake shelves as they were in the process of opening. All of the expensive electrical and mechanical equipment was removed and returned to its original manual operation. The only thing that remains from the automated system are the switches which no longer have any function