MANTI — Manti's original city hall, listed on the national historic register, had been vacant for more than a decade. During that time, it had served as a city warehouse, Sub-for-Santa distribution center and Halloween haunted house.
When the city started looking into whether the building, officially known as the Old City Hall, could be restored, Vern Buchanan, now 76, a retired contractor and businessman, offered to serve on the committee. He even said he would supervise the project. "But don't ask me to do the work!" he declared.
The statement clearly belongs in a file marked "Famous Last Words." In the past two years, about 2,000 hours have been donated to restoring the 3,200-square-foot landmark on the town's Main Street. "About half of those hours were mine," says Buchanan.
The majority of the other 1,000 hours were donated by Buchanan's wife, Karen, 69, and by another retired Manti couple, Alvin and Mattie Kilmer, who operate a local bed-and-breakfast inn.
Once Vern got going on the project, his commitment ran deep, his wife says. Maybe that's because one of the primary carpenters who built the building was his great-grandfather, John Buchanan, a pioneer who arrived in Manti in 1852.
Several years before they got involved in the restoration, the Buchanans were walking along Main Street and stopped to read the historic plaque on the front of the building. John Buchanan was one of four builders listed. "We knew he had worked on the Manti Temple, but we didn't know he had worked on this building until we saw it on the plaque," Karen Buchanan says.
In financial as well as aesthetic terms, Vern Buchanan appears to have pulled off an amazing feat as superintendent of the project. The initial cost estimate for restoring the building was $250,000-$500,000. Restoration is more than 50 percent complete, and to date, cash expenditures have come to between $20,000 and $25,000. The city put up $10,000. The Buchanans have raised most of the rest from grants, donations and selling off items they found in the building.
With the first level nearly complete, the restored building will make a debut of sorts Thursday when the Mormon Miracle Pageant opens its 37th season. The pageant, which tells the saga of the Mormon pioneers who settled the Sanpete Valley, runs Thursday through Saturday this week, and Tuesday through Saturday next week, beginning at 9:30 p.m. on the hill below the Manti LDS Temple. The Old City Hall will host a tourist information center, continuous showings of a video on pageant history and a quilt show.
The two-story building was built in 1873 and served as the city hall until 1985. Over the years, parts of the building were also used as a school, jail and National Guard armory. After the city moved out in 1985, a ballet school occupied the building for six years. "After that, it was just derelict," Karen Buchanan says.
When the Buchanans took the mayor and city council on tours to evaluate the restoration potential, the building was chilly and deadly still. "The only indication of any life was spider webs from the haunted house, and those were artificial," she says.
But when a state restoration expert and the county building inspector went over the structure, they gave the Buchanans good news. "The professionals told Vern that the building was absolutely sound and restorable. Most of what was needed was cosmetic," Karen Buchanan says.
The Buchanans and the Kilmers started working on the building almost full-time about one year ago. A myriad of projects have been completed, including de-junking the building, replacing cast iron pipes with plastic ones, repairing wood trim and flooring, putting in a ceramic tile floor in one of two restrooms, and extensive plastering and painting.
Other volunteers have helped a lot, too. A woman from Spring City, a town north of Manti, who had restoration experience painstakingly stripped paint from a newel post at the base of bannister leading to the second floor. The post is one of the treasures of the building, Karen Buchanan says.
"Vern and his crew have renovated that building on a shoestring budget into something that has multiple uses for the city," Manti Mayor Kim Anderson says. "It's been incredible. We're just thrilled."
E-mail: sdean@manti.com