Everett Carnegie Library was designed by August Heid and Emil deNeuf of the firm Heide and deNeuf as a scaled-down, one-story-with-basement version of the Pomona Carnegie Library design, which was itself based largely on the Boston Public Library by McKim, Mead and White. Built in 1895, the Boston Public Library combined Renaissance Revival and Beaux-Arts components with inspiration from French, Italian, and Roman palaces and from university and cathedral buildings, and the Everett building adapted that basic design to a sloping site. Heid, then Puget Sound's most prominent architect, also designed other Snohomish County buildings, including the Mission-style Snohomish County Courthouse and the Colonial Revival-style home at 1703 Grand Avenue, later added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998 and commonly known as the former home of Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson. Inside the library, the main floor included a sunny children's room off the entrance, a public reading room, a small reference and study room, and a woman's parlor, while the librarian's desk stood before semicircular bookshelves so patrons and valuable books could be kept in view; the basement contained an auditorium and book storage. Part of the original stained glass entry windows is displayed at the downtown Everett Library. After the library moved downtown in 1934, the Carnegie Building served as a funeral home for 45 years, then stood vacant for several years in the 1980s before Snohomish County purchased it in 1980. A renovation centered mainly on seismic upgrades adapted it for office use, and the first major effort to restore the Everett Carnegie Library to its original state began in 2014 and was completed in 2018, funded in part by a Washington State Historical Society grant, with plans by Capital Architects of Everett that balanced contemporary county needs with the building's historical importance.