PLANS For twelve decades, excepting a hiatus around the middle of this century, the area has been a home to the Library Company. After leaving its Furness-designed quarters, demolished in 1940, to consolidate operations in its Ridgway Building at Broad and Christian streets (now the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts), the Library Company returned to the area in 1965 with its present building on the site of three Victorian townhouses. Substantial renovations and replanning were carried out by the Vitetta Group in the 1990s, creating the present gallery and expanding the facilities for readers. Several months ago, the Library Company began planning for the renovation of the building to its west, a townhouse at 1320 Locust Street that was built in 1883-84 for one of the enclave-dwelling elite. Modest in a streetscape of neighbors of equal size, it was nonetheless highly distinctive in character, and almost certainly designed by Furness & Evans. 1320 Locust was built for J. Gardner Cassatt, brother of painter Mary Cassatt and of Alexander J. Cassatt, a longtime executive of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and its president from 1899 to 1906. Although J. Gardner Cassatt did not stay long, the house experienced relatively few owners and only rather modest changes over the years. The Library Company is now working with Becker Winston Architects to plan the reuse of the Cassatt house as a residential research center devoted to the study of early American history. The house is remarkably intact, and the architects are designing renovations that will preserve some of its principal spaces while adapting it to its new use.

F1. Preliminary design of new Library Company of Philadelphia building, 1314 Locust Street (built 1965, Carroll, Grisdale, and van Alen, architects). Photograph of perspective by Earle Oakes, April 1964. Library Company of Philadelphia. For an earlier view of the site, see item D13.
F2. Townhouses, 1320-22 Locust Street. Photograph, 29 June 1927. Philadelphia City Archives (904/ #16855). The Locust Street townhouses to the west of the Patterson mansion, itself purchased by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in October 1883, were all built on lots sold that same year by Francis Stokes, a lumber merchant. 1320 Locust was the first to rise. It was erected for J. Gardner Cassatt (1849-1911), who had married Jennie Carter of Virginia in October 1882. Although there is no definitive documentation, both style and patronage strongly suggest that this was a design by Furness & Evans, who were more certainly responsible for the house next door, built for Furness's older sister Annis and her husband, Caspar Wister. Cassatt family members were long-time clients of Furness, who in 1880 had altered the family seat, Cheswold. Late in 1886 the Cassatts moved closer to Rittenhouse Square, and the house was altered in 1901 by architect Joseph Huston, but it received relatively few changes over the years since. It was purchased by the Library Company in 1967.
F3. A.J. Cassatt and others at the Cassatt Estate, "Cheswold," Haverford, PA. Platinum print by William H. Rau, ca. 1900. Library Company of Philadelphia.
F4. Proposed changes to 1320 Locust Street, plans (Becker Winston Architects, 1999). Courtesy of Becker Winston Architects
F5. Proposed changes to 1320 Locust Street, reception area, ground floor, perspective, tinted (Becker Winston Architects, 1999). Courtesy of Becker Winston Architects.
F6. Proposed changes to 1320 Locust Street, longitudinal section, tinted (Becker Winston Architects, 1999). Courtesy of Becker Winston Architects
F7. Late 19th- and early 20th-century artifacts found at 1320 Locust Street, 1999. Library Company of Philadelphia.