PROVO — Start with a giant mound of dirt 40 feet tall. Cover it with a thick layer of concrete, dig the sand out, and reinforce the concrete dome with steel. Wait for about 40 years.
That may not sound like the recipe for a landmark, but that's precisely what the Ream's "turtle shell" grocery store in Provo has become.
Built in 1962 as a skating rink, the grocery store/Western wear outlet will close its doors forever in March. Some will bemoan the loss of this eyesore-turned-beloved-landmark.
"Everybody says 'Oh, we love that store, don't close it,' and I ask them when the last time they shopped there was and they say 'Oh, about 10 years ago,' " said Jason Ream, a co-owner of the store. "They want us to keep it open, but they don't shop there."
The silver dome at 1350 N. Freedom Blvd. will be razed to make way for a development that will include about 100 condos and 34,000 square feet of commercial and retail space on four acres.
When the building comes down, a piece of Provo's history will go down with it.
Provo Mayor Lewis Billings remembers watching hockey games as a boy at the shell when it was still an ice rink. He marveled at the footprints on the ceiling —and later learned they had been left in the dirt mound and permanently stamped into the concrete when the dome was created.
"I used to be amused by that," Billings said. "You can't really think of too many buildings in Utah as unique as that one. It's certainly a part of the fabric of Provo."
Robert Ream, patriarch of the family, says the rink was built using a mound of dirt 40 feet high and 260 feet long as a mold. The idea, he says, came from a Brigham Young University engineering professor.
The rink briefly hosted a college hockey team, but by the time the Ream family bought it in 1968 it had sat empty for a few years. The Reams bought the rink and turned it into a store that sold groceries and Western wear at discount prices.
In the late '60s, Provo was still a small town, and a railroad ran right along side the Ream's store. Robert Ream says his father bought groceries in high volume from a railroad car that stopped near the store, then sold them at cost plus 10 percent.
Wholesale prices were so rare at the time (there was no Costco or Wal-Mart), ranchers came from as far away as Colorado and Wyoming to fill their horse trailers with Wrangler jeans and groceries bought in bulk. The "cost plus 10 percent" phrase became a Ream's slogan.
"As a boy it confused me because both the (LDS) Church and Ream's asked for 10 percent," said Mike Mower, Provo's director of community relations. "So my memories of Ream's tie into tithing."
Robert Ream says the store sold a higher volume of groceries than any other store in the state for years.
In the meantime, the Ream's store had become a landmark. Pilots used the 160-feet-tall flag pole in front of the store as a reference point when landing at the Provo airport, and children marvelled at the massive pair of Wrangler jeans hanging from the store's ceiling.
"To anybody who has lived in Provo for the past 35 years, it really is a landmark," City Councilman Stan Lockhart said. "There is a lot of affection out there from longtime residents toward that facility."
Lockhart says his fondest memories will not be of the building, but of the generosity of its owners. He says as a young impoverished Scoutmaster he often got food for camp outs from the Ream family.
Mark Dollase, executive director of the Utah Heritage Foundation, says the building may be worth saving.
"People think landmarks have to be historic, aesthetically pleasing buildings, but that's not always the case. Sometimes a building can be so unique it becomes historic," Dollase said.
The Ream family understands this sentiment, but says the building's time has come. Repairing the roof and making other capital improvements would be too expensive to keep the store running, says Paul Ream.
He says the other Ream's stores — in Springville and southwest Provo — will stay open, and he stresses that the family business is vibrant.
"It was a unique building, but it's served its time, it just doesn't make sense to keep it open," he said.
Liquidation of store merchandise will begin in February. Paul Ream said he will try to keep the flag pole in place when he builds a new development on the land.
E-MAIL: jhyde@desnews.com