Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, San Diego, Guia do visitante e o que fazer por perto

The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library is a membership library on Wall Street in La Jolla, San Diego, that specialises in music and art. It grew out of a reading club founded by local women in the 1890s, and its 1921 building by architect William Templeton Johnson still stands on the same corner where the first reading room was built.

The story behind it

The story starts in 1894, when six women in La Jolla formed a reading club. In 1898 a summer visitor, Florence Sawyer, built them a small reading room on the corner of Girard and Wall. The women then incorporated as the Library Association of La Jolla, a name that is still the institution's legal one.

By 1921 the village had outgrown the little room. With money raised by members and matched by the philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps, William Templeton Johnson designed a new library on the same site. The horticulturist Kate Sessions laid out a garden reading court behind it. The general library has since moved elsewhere, and the Athenaeum now focuses on music and art. It is one of a small number of membership libraries left in the United States.

What to look for

• The building itself, a 1921 design by William Templeton Johnson, which sits on the very corner where La Jolla's first reading room was built.
• The garden reading court behind the building, planned by Kate Sessions, who also shaped much of San Diego's planted landscape.
• The Athenaeum's focus on music and art, which sets it apart from an ordinary public library.
• The mix of shops, offices and old village buildings along Wall Street and Girard Avenue, which shows how the town grew around this corner.

Tips for your visit

• Allow 15 to 30 minutes for the outside and the surrounding blocks, longer if you go in.
• It is a membership library, so check current opening hours and visitor access before you plan to go inside.
• Morning or late afternoon light is pleasant for a walk through the village streets.
• Prospect Street and the coastline of La Jolla are a short walk away, so it fits easily into a longer stroll.

See it on a quest

On Murder Mystery: Death in the Shadows in La Jolla, San Diego you reach the library on foot as one stop of a longer route through the area. The app tells you about each place as you arrive, and you solve a puzzle on the spot. One ticket covers the whole group.

Ghost Hunt in San Diego also passes this corner. You walk from stop to stop, hear the story of each place when you get there and solve a puzzle in front of you, with no guide and no group to join. One ticket covers the whole group.