Peter Marino Art Foundation: Original Rogers Memorial Library

The decade of the 1890s in Southampton was a time of rapid cultural growth. Harriet Jones Rogers willed $10,000 and a plot of land at the corner of Main Street and Jobs Lane for the establishment of a library in memory of her mother Clara (Herrick) Rogers. New York City architect and member of Southampton’s summer colony R.H. Robertson chose a Queen Anne style for the building that is dedicated in 1895. The shelves of the original library held about 20,000 volumes on opening day, and by 1916 Southampton readers are borrowing as many as 100 books a day. Expansion becomes a necessity as Southampton continues to grow and in 1915, architect Grosvenor Atterbury, also a member of the summer colony, is called upon to design an appropriate addition. After serving the community for more than a century, in 2000, the library erected a new building and relocated to Windmill Lane, leaving this 19th-century structure in need of major work to return it to its former glory. Peter Marino stepped up in 2018 to take ownership for his Art Foundation and began a three-year restoration of the landmarked building. In June 2021 it opened to the public with art exhibitions and programs that extend Harriet Rogers’ mission to enrich the cultural life of the community into the 21st century.