This extant Nauvoo home once belonged to William and Caroline Weeks. William is probably best known as the architect and general superintendent of the Nauvoo Temple. The home, located on the north side of Young Street between Durphy and Partridge Streets, also served as his office.
William had sketched out some drawings and renderings of what the temple might look like. The Prophet Joseph Smith would review those renderings and then give further directions of how William should proceed. On one occasion, Joseph said, “I wish you to carry out my designs. I have seen in vision the splendid appearance of that building illuminated and will have it built according to the pattern shown me.”
In 1948, Leslie and Zetta Griffin of Boron, California, donated some of William Weeks' original Nauvoo Temple drawings to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through a missionary named Elder Vern Thacker. According to Roger Jackson, architect of the rebuilt Nauvoo Illinois Temple, those drawings were of great value in reconstructing that marvelous structure.