ST. GEORGE — Historically speaking, Brigham Young's Winter Home has misled a few visitors over the years with its bland white-on-white paint job.
Saturday, the home was reopened after a several-months-long renovation that brought color inside and out and smiles to its visitors.
Young and several other early leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were there; volunteer actors with "St. George Live" performed in costume and delivered speeches to a crowd of several hundred.
Young, the second president of the LDS Church, enjoyed color — and surrounded himself with it in the form of his home and gardens, said Steven Olsen, associate managing director of church history for the LDS Church.
"We found the original color of paint when we scraped off all the white paint," said Olsen. "During our research we found out that when the paint was ordered for the St. George LDS Temple the wrong color was delivered. It was green instead of white. So a lot of the fences and homes around St. George were painted green."
From the home's natural adobe bricks topped by moss green eaves adorned with decorative carved brackets to the finely carved wooden secretary in the parlor and original massive bed in Young's upstairs bedroom, everything was ready for Saturday's grand reopening.
"This is just wonderful," said 86-year-old Gertrude Smith Cottam as she sat on the front porch with her husband of eight days, Lory Free. "I grew up in St. George, but I don't really remember if the house was this color or not. It's just wonderful."
Cottam's grandfather, Thomas Cottam, was one of two carpenters from England who were asked by Young to make furniture for his winter home. Several replicas of her grandfather's chairs are in the home, and an original rocking chair sits next to the kitchen stove.
"We began our research into the home two years ago," said Olsen. "When you look at it from an engineering standpoint, we really wondered if we could do any good."
What they found out, said Olsen, is that the home's walls were not reinforced, the roof wasn't structurally tied down to anything, the floor joists were cut into the adobe walls, the foundation was eroding and there was some water damage.
"It's amazing it withstood a number of earthquakes over the years, "Olsen said.
Ensign Engineering of Salt Lake City recommended several ways to make the home more seismologically sound, including driving pins down through the top of the walls to bolt the roof down and sinking pins laterally through the 3-foot-thick adobe walls every square foot to hold the house together.
A semi-permeable membrane was sealed over the face of the adobe and rain gutters designed after 19th century patterns were constructed and installed.
Young originally bought the back half of the home in the early 1870s, adding onto it in 1873. He spent the final winters of his life there, enjoying the area's warm weather and directing the construction of the St. George LDS Temple.
The Brigham Young Winter Home is at 67 W. 200 North and is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Call 435-673-2517 for more information.
E-MAIL: nperkins@infowest.com