Stone Building


The Stone Building, built in 1833, is an historic Greek Revival style building located at 735 Massachusetts Avenue in Lexington, Massachusetts. It was originally a meeting hall for East Lexington, which had its own civic identity and its own church, the neighboring Follen Community Church. Notable speakers at the hall included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, and Josiah Quincy, Jr. The building was offered to the trustees of the Cary Memorial Library for $2,000 in 1891, by Ellen Stone, granddaughter of Eli Robbins, who built it, and it was named for her. The East Lexington branch library which had been established in 1883, occupied it until the building was closed for repairs in 2007.
On April 30, 1976, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Current status

In August, 2007, the building suffered damage from burst pipes, and was closed for repairs.
The East Branch never reopened. In February 2009, the Cary Memorial Library Board of Trustees announced their decision to use the Stone Building as a Lexington Heritage Center.