How it all started . . .

This home has some history! It was built in 1885 or 1886 (We've found both dates in various records).  This was a time when Mormon pioneers were settling in various communities in Utah.  The builders of this home chose Springville as their town, and a lot one street away from the main dirt road Main Street.  The city was laid out in a grid, following the same pattern of coordinates which was used in Salt Lake City: Two intersecting main roads, with streets counting up in each direction.  Each city block was divided into four lots, each approximately an acre.

To build the home, they stacked large stones directly on the ground and laid rough-cut timbers on top to form the foundation.  From there they laid floor joists, also rough-cut, and began stacking the adobe brick which created the walls.  The adobe bricks were made of grey clay soil which was packed into molds and allowed to dry.  These walls were sandwiched between fired clay bricks on the exterior and plaster applied directly to the brick on the interior.  

The ceiling joists rested on top of the walls, and the roof was built from there.  One curious thing we found when we went into the attic was that there were multiple roofs.  It appears that they built the house in sections, then added a larger roof as they added each new part of the house.

Originally the roof was constructed of rough-cut beams, onto which thin strips of wood were attached.  Cedar shake shingles were then nailed to the thin strips of wood.  From inside the attic, you could see light through the shingles and slats.

There was a box/bay window on the front of the home in the beginning, which can be seen in the photo below.  According to Karen Snow, whose grandmother Mrs. Starr previously lived in the home, there was a window seat on which she would sit.  Both she, and long-time neighbor June Blanchard, reported that the window fell off at some point.  The owners at that time put 3 long windows in the opening, rather than replacing the box/bay.  We recall seeing somewhere that this photo was taken sometime in the 1920's.

  Sometime after the house was built, but before this photo was taken, a wrap-around porch was added.  Although it does add some charm and character to the house--and was one of the main things that drew us to it--the porch does cover up some of the beautiful architectural woodwork above the two windows on the east side.

We purchased the home in the spring of 1991, at which time it looked like this:

In addition to adding the porch to the northeast corner of the house, previous owners had sold off about 1/2 of the property, to the south, on which two homes were built.  That left about 1/2 acre with the home. They also enclosed the back porch to create a laundry room, dug a cellar, created concrete steps to reach the cellar, constructed a roof over the cellar stairs, poured a concrete patio, added a clothesline, and constructed a cinder block workshop/garage in the southwest corner of the property.  Finally, they had painted the original brick, which was varying shades of sandstone color, now gray with black and white trim.

We planted trees, which can be seen as small saplings in this panoramic photo from sometime around 1996-1998.