PROVO, Utah — More than 100 years after it was built for U.S. senator and Mormon apostle Reed Smoot, the stately yellow brick house on 100 South is still home to his family.
"It has always been in the family," said Smoot's great-grandson, also named Reed Smoot. "My wife and I really just consider ourselves this generation's caretakers of the home."
As such, Reed and Julia Smoot have worked for almost 30 years to keep the house as close as possible to how it looked when it was built in 1892. To step through the door is to enter a home of the 1890s, with period wallpaper on the walls, chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, an antique rug spreading across the floor and the former senator's furniture lining the parlor.
"We just both felt very drawn to the whole notion of preserving for future generations," said Reed Smoot, who purchased the home from a family trust after his grandmother died.
The house is now heated with radiators instead of stoves and fireplaces, and the kitchen has been fitted with some well-disguised modern appliances, but almost everything else looks as it would have a century ago, the Smoots said.
Decked out in red, white and blue banners for the Freedom Festival's Historic Provo Tours, the home resembled a museum, which the Smoots said it is anything but.
"It's been well-lived-in by a lot of generations of our family," said Reed Smoot, who, with Julia, raised a family of his own in the house. "Their young people have been taught respect — to take care of things," he said.
And personal care for the family home is a theme that spans generations, beginning with Sen. Reed Smoot, who drew up its preliminary plans. Years later, his son Harlow improved the house's electrical wiring system and set about maintaining the house in its original condition. A generation later, Samuel Smoot worked to have the home placed on a historic register. Now, Reed and Julia Smoot are taking their turn in the long line of family members who have cared for the mansion.
"Hopefully it will lead to a sustaining by our family members of the same kind of customs and traditions that we remembered growing up," Reed Smoot said. "In a world where people are much more transient than before, we just think that it's important to know what our roots are."
For the Smoots, those roots run deep. Reed Smoot's great-great-grandfather, Abraham O. Smoot, was an early mayor of both Salt Lake City and Provo and funded Brigham Young Academy. Before becoming an apostle and U.S. senator, his son Reed was president of a local bank and the director of ZCMI.
"It's a great honor to be associated with our forefathers," Reed Smoot said. "It's an ongoing education for each of our family members to discover more and more about the things that were accomplished by our ancestors."
Because of the positions those predecessors held, the Smoots — and the house they lived in — played host to an important cast of people. President Warren Harding once visited the home, and rumors of visits by other presidents abound.
While presidents may no longer drop in, today, Reed and Julia Smoot have visitors of their own.
"We always meet very interesting people who are interested in preserving homes," Julia Smoot said. Some visitors have come from as far away as Australia. Others grew up in the neighborhood and return to see a place they have remembered from earlier years, often sharing their memories with the Smoots.
"It's almost like a step back in time, in a way," Reed Smoot said. "The only purpose that serves is as a reminder of how terrific our heritage is and a reminder that we'd be shortsighted to forget that."
e-mail: jritter@desnews.com