Beloved Pierce County library closes today — maybe forever. Some aren’t ready for goodbye
Marsha Klaas sent me a handwritten letter. Over the years, that’s how the 77-year-old has often corresponded. She’s not one for email, or her landline telephone for that matter.
This note was urgent.
“I have no one else to turn to,” Klaas spelled out in block letters pressed into paper with a ballpoint pen, a style I’ve come to know well. “Please help!”
Without reading any further, I already knew the score. Klaas is many things — colorful, outspoken, feisty — but most of all she’s a diehard supporter of the Lakewood Library. For more than a decade, she’s been a member of the volunteer group that collects and sells used books out of its basement, raising money for an institution she considers to be a community treasure. Few things seem to matter to her more than the historic 59-year-old building near the corner of Wildaire and Gravelly Lake, not far from Lakewood Towne Center.
As I suspected, Klaas was writing because a day she’d long feared — and tried with every fiber of her being to prevent — was quickly approaching.
On Saturday, the Lakewood Library will close its doors to the public for what could be the final time, and Klass for one isn’t happy about it.
“It breaks my heart,” Klaas told me Friday, her emotions raw and voice shaking. “They want a Taj Mahal library, and they’re going to get it. And they’re taking this away.”
Before going any further, I have an important disclaimer, which I also offered Klaas upfront: I can’t save the Lakewood Library. Part of me would like to try, because I know the relief it would bring to a number of long-time Lakewood residents, and because the pain on Klaas’ face is hard to bear, but the reality facing the building is stark.
As The News Tribune has reported, the Pierce County Library System recently decided it makes more sense to shutter the building and find a new temporary location than potentially foot the bill of urgent repairs, which it estimates would cost $10 to $15 million.
For now, the library system will focus on finding a short-term location by the end of the year, according to spokesperson Nicole Milbradt, who said the decision to close the library “didn’t come easily.”
Meanwhile, a sizable advisory committee is being assembled to figure out where to go from there.
That could mean figuring out how to pay for repairs to the old library’s leaky roof, faulty plumbing and floundering heating and cooling system — and one day reopening it, Milbradt acknowledged.
Or, more likely it seems, it could mean a brand new building some day.
In other words, Klaas’ quest could be all but over, and she knows it.
“It’s a historical building. Everybody’s comfortable there. They have everything that anybody wants,” said Klaas, who raised four children in Lakewood, and has fond memories of taking them to the library when they were young.
“It’s just not right.”
Lakewood history
The thing about Lakewood’s history is it’s easy to miss. Unless you’re a local and had kids in Clover Park schools, attended Fourth of July fireworks shows at Villa Plaza or remember when the “Pong” arcade game debuted at the Liberty House department store, the woody slice of post-World War II suburbia feels unremarkable, or like somewhere you accidentally get lost.
But behind the strip-mall and cul de sac exterior is a place where memories were made, lives were built and a city was born, according to former city council member Walter Neary, a one-time journalist who co-authored two books on Lakewood’s history.
Lakewood’s library, which opened in 1963 as the Flora Tenzler Memorial Library, paid for with $250,000 from the Tenzler Foundation, plays a big part in that story, Neary said. For years, it was the place where community meetings were held, providing a location for many of the civic conversations that shaped Lakewood (or at least the ones that didn’t happen over martinis at the Terrace piano bar). At the time of its opening, it was also a marvel: Russell Garrison, the architect hired by the Tenzlers, won a prestigious award for his efforts.
Ten years after it opened, the Tenzler foundation funded an expansion at the library, adding what at the time was a state-of-the-art audio and visual wing, complete with upholstered egg chairs with stereo speakers for listening to records and tapes played on demand by staff.
According to Neary, the library, which for many years was owned and operated by the same volunteer group that Klaas is a proud member of, was a key part of a burgeoning city’s identity.
“It’s not like Lakewood is Tacoma, with all this history, you know? We’re sort of developing our own history,” Neary, 60, said of the city he’s called home for half his life, which officially incorporated in 1996.
“You’ve got to remember: Lakewood, for a long time, was pretty much just an extension of Tacoma, and its sense of community grew gradually. … To have a library here was significant,” Neary said.
In the early 1990s, the volunteer group that owned the library, by then known as the Friends of the Lakewood Library, donated the building to the Pierce County Library System, along with $350,000 for renovations.
Neary said that’s one reason the library’s closure is proving such strong emotions.
“When the Friends of the Library handed the building over to the Pierce County Library, there was a sense of trust that Pierce County Library would remain faithful to Lakewood. And they are still planning to have a library here, so that’s good,” Neary said.
“But it’s something people are sensitive about,” he added. “Like, ‘Hey, that’s part of my heritage, in my small and recently evolved and unified little community.”
Neary said he’s “keeping an open mind” about the prospect of a new library.
Whatever happens, he hopes the original building is preserved in some fashion, he said.
“It’s a historic spot,” Neary said.
“We all wish these buildings would never change and always stay the same, but you’ve got to be real about what goes on in the world.”
Lakewood Library’s final day
Carlo Manetti, an 85-year-old retired doctor who lives within a stone’s throw of the Lakewood Library, is another regular visitor who says he will be filled with sadness when the doors are locked Saturday evening.
Manetti, who immigrated to the United States from Italy and raised a family in the home he’s lived in since 1977, said he’s been checking out books from the library every week for more than 40 years.
On Thursday, Manetti said he’s not convinced it would take as much to salvage the building as the Pierce County Library System has claimed. In Lakewood these days, it’s a familiar line of questioning from those who oppose the decision to close the facility.
Manetti also said he’s not ready to give up. Along with his daughter, Christina Manetti — who’s no stranger to public battles, having recently helped to save roughly 90 Garry oak trees in Lakewood from being cut down to make way for a new warehouse — there are plans to pressure the Pierce County Library System and the city in the coming months.
“For me, the most important part is that the library is one of the few buildings around here that is unique,” Manetti said. “The thing that surprises me is how little we care about these things in the United States. … If we don’t like a building after a few years, we bring in bulldozers and knock it down.”
According to Milbradt, the Pierce County Library System is well aware of how beloved the Lakewood Library is, and how difficult this change will be for some users. She stressed that no final decisions have been made, and — whatever happens — the agency is committed to providing library services in Lakewood.
Milbradt also promised that there would be ample opportunity for public engagement as the future of library services in Lakewood is decided, and that the process would be thorough and transparent.
Still, that’s cold comfort for Klaas, who senses the writing is on the wall.
“They’re going to close that building and there’s nothing anyone can do about it,” Klaas said.
“I tried,” she quickly added, fighting back tears.
“Oh, God, I fought.”
This story was originally published June 4, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
