Long the state’s only art museum, this institution occupies a Colonial Revival side-gabled brick building that recalls the attenuated elegance of the Federal period in its tripartite form and slender, paired Tower of the Winds columns supporting a deep porch. Lumberman Lauren Eastman gave the land, building, and much of the early collection in memory of his only grandson, Lauren Eastman Rogers, who planned to build his new house on this lot but died of appendicitis in 1921. The front library section was completed in 1922, and in 1925 Eastman donated another $110,000 for a museum and art gallery addition at the rear. Several nationally known artisans crafted the interior, including designers Watson and Walton and ironworker Samuel Yellin. The copper-clad rear wing (2013) by Laurel native Michael Foil extends gallery and educational spaces and contains a sinuous glass chandelier by Seattle artist Dale Chihuly.
Lauren Rogers’s unusual Prairie Style family house (c. 1910) stands across the street at 566 N. 5th. The weighty and geometric boxy portico and porte-cochere on heavy piers contrast with the small Doric columns that seem like classical afterthoughts on this vigorous composition.