12357 South Relation Street
Draper, UT, USA

National Register of Historic Places -Joseph M. and Celestia Smith House

Statement of Significance:

The Joseph M. and Celestia Smith House is architecturally significant in the town of Draper as an excellent example of a variant of the cross-wing house type. The original c.1879 house was a one-story brick single-cell structure. It was expanded by a two-story addition c.1890 creating the present cross-wing configuration. The addition itself is noteworthy for its Victorian Eclectic detailing--bay window, hooded arches over windows, and ogee arched front window. The house as a whole documents the important shift in residential architecture in late nineteenth-century Utah toward the cross-wing plan and away from the more classically derived vernacular forms, such as hall parlor, single cell, and a central passage. A 1989 architectural survey of Draper revealed the presence of 24 cross-wing houses that retain their integrity. The Smith house is one of only two that were created by an addition to an original single-cell house.

History

Joseph Michael Smith was born February 1, 1856, in Draper, Utah, which had been settled by Mormon pioneers in 1849. Draper is located in the south end of the Salt Lake Valley and until recent years has been a small, sparsely populated agricultural community. Joseph's parents were Lauritz and Mary K. Mickelsen Smith, who had come to Utah as Mormon converts from Denmark in 1854. On January 19, 1879, he married Celestia Ann Brown. She was also a native of Draper, having been born there in 1859. Family tradition holds that Joseph completed the original one-room section of the house just prior to their marriage. The 1880 census confirms that Joseph, Celestia, and their six-month-old son, Joseph L., were living in their own house and not sharing a house with either of their parents.

The original single-cell house is now the northwest section of the house (see floor plan drawing). This is evident by its one-room floor plan, which was an early form, the wood lintels over the window and door openings (an earlier type of construction than the segmental arches found on other sections of the house), and the way the brick is joined at the corner where this section meets the two-story section. The Smiths added to the house as their family grew. The two-story section on the south was the last major addition, to be built, reportedly completed when the seventh child, Alice, was born in 1890.

The Smiths eventually had fourteen children--seven sons and seven daughters. All of them were raised in this house. After Celestia's death in 1914, Joseph married Anna Petrina Larsen in 1922. She was a Mormon convert from Denmark, who had come to Utah that same year. Joseph continued to live in the house until his death in 1948. Anna died in 1951 in a Salt Lake City rest home.

Joseph M. Smith's varied career included quarryman, fruit farmer, agricultural inspector, and irrigation canal builder. Except for the years as a quarryman, farming was his occupation; all his other activities took place along with his farming. Joseph M. worked for eighteen years as a stone quarryman, cutting stone for the Salt Lake Temple, which was completed in 1893.* He turned to farming at about that time. In 1891 he obtained legal title to the property on which the house sits from his father, Lauritz Smith, and at about that same time purchased over 26 additional acres from Nephi Heward. Within a year he mortgaged this new property to Utah Nursery Company, apparently to finance the fruit-growing operation that would become his principal livelihood. Like his father, Joseph planted several acres in berry patches and orchards. His daughters recall that much of their property was in orchards, even west of Relation Street; the main exception was the hollow along the creek bed. Unlike the earlier farmers in the area, who, out of necessity, practiced more diversified farming to provide for most of their own needs, Joseph and his generation of farmers tended toward specialized farming with an eye more on the marketplace than on self-sufficiency.

Joseph was involved in community and church affairs as well. He served as a fruit inspector in Salt Lake County and took an active part in irrigation projects designed to increase available water and expand the amount of cultivatable land. He donated a piece of his property to District 29 for the East Side School in Draper. That school operated until the late 1890s when the three schools in Draper were consolidated. Several years later, the district returned the title of the land to him since it was no longer using it for its donated purpose.

Joseph was also active in the affairs of the local Mormon church. He served as superintendent of the Draper Ward Sunday School, a member of the Jordan Stake Sunday School Board, and a high councilman in the Jordan Stake. (A ward is a congregation, and a stake contains several wards.) He also served as stake patriarch, which included the nearby communities of Butler, Ft. Union, Sandy, Midvale, Granite, and Crescent as well as Draper. He filled this position until his death in 1948.

The current owner, Johanna Sielhorst, purchased the house in the 1950s and still lives there. She has made a number of minor changes over the years on both the exterior and interior but has preserved the overall integrity of the house.

Architectural Significance

The Joseph and Celestia Smith House is architecturally significant in Draper. It is a vernacular, rather than high-style, building, reflecting house forms common in Utah and throughout the United States during the nineteenth century. The original c.1879 single-cell section of the house is a typical "starter home" of the period. Its small scale and simple form made it an affordable and practical choice for new families and new settlements, where resources were limited. Though sometimes viewed as an impermanent, frontier type of dwelling, it was actually a substantial house form that remained popular in Utah until well into the 1890s.
Virtually all single-cells have additions because the one small room was not sufficient for all the household needs. Subordinate additions are most common and usually take the form of a rear lean-to, which typically housed a kitchen. Dominant additions are less common, though by no means rare. They are usually in the form of a cross-wing, such as the c.1890 section on this house. A cross-wing addition would not only provide a larger and more functional floor plan but would create a more fashionable house as well. The cross-wing, with its intersecting wings and more irregular form, became the most popular house type in Utah after about 1880. It was usually embellished with architectural detailing from the Victorian period. The single-cell and other earlier house types (hall-parlor, double-cell, central passage, etc.) were usually detailed with Classical elements, such as Greek Revival returns on the gable ends. The Smith House reflects both of these architectural trends.

The Smith House is the only well-preserved example in Draper of this type of cross-wing house (i.e., one that was created by a Victorian addition to a single-cell). The Henry Eastman Day House at 12405 South 300 East is a good example of an early cross-wing created by the addition of a two-story double-cell house to an original single-cell. Unlike the Smith House, the Day House does not feature Victorian-era detailing. Rather, it exhibits only Classical/vernacular architectural forms and features in both sections. The results of a 1989 reconnaissance-level architectural survey of Draper provide a quantifiable context for these house types. Relatively few single-cell houses remain in the community--a total of five, of which only three are potentially eligible for listing in the National Register. Cross-wings are much more common, with a total of 47, of which 24 are eligible. (A total of 519 buildings were surveyed; 149 were evaluated as "potentially eligible.") Some of the cross-wings were created by additions (primarily to hall-parlor houses), though most were built originally as cross-wings. All of the cross-wings in Draper were built between about 1875 and 1900 and have primarily brick or plastered adobe exterior walls, materials that are typical in most Utah towns.