Salt Lake Temple will open its doors to public for six months during 2027 open house

When the 40-year construction of the historic Salt Lake Temple was finally completed in 1893, a public open house was scheduled by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It lasted one day.

Now the church is inviting the world to tour the landmark temple during its second public open house, one that will last for six months in 2027.

President Russell M. Nelson announced the plans Friday, simultaneously signaling the end of an arduous seven-year renovation project that has fascinated the public.

“Today, exactly 172 years after the groundbreaking ceremony, I am delighted to announce that the temple will reopen for tours during a public open house from April to October 2027,” President Nelson said in social media posts. “We warmly invite our friends to come and learn about God’s plan for His children and rejoice in the love of Jesus Christ.”

President Nelson said details about the open house will be shared closer to the April 2027 general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“As houses of the Lord now dot the earth, I invite you to cherish your time and service at the temples closest to you as we prepare for the reopening of the Salt Lake Temple in 2027,” he said.

The temple’s original groundbreaking ceremony took place on Feb. 14, 1853. The temple’s original construction then took 40 years.

President Nelson called it “a journey of faith and sacrifice, culminating in the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple in 1893.

The renovation was designed to retrofit the temple to withstand earthquakes up to magnitude 7.3, the maximum expected in Salt Lake Valley. President Nelson said the goal was “to strengthen this sacred house of the Lord for future generations.”

He announced the renovation in April 2019.

“We promise that you will love the results,” he said.

Open house will set records

A record-setting public open house was anticipated from the start.

“I expect this will be the largest and most heavily attended open house in the history of the church,” Elder Larry Y. Wilson, then the executive director of the Temple Department, told the Deseret News after the announcement. “We don’t yet have a time frame that has been determined for it, but I expect it will be a substantial time frame, which will allow for people from around the United States and around the world to come and enter and enjoy and experience the beautiful Salt Lake temple.”

The open house will be the longest in church history. The longest temple open house in Utah history is 85 days, for the Saratoga Springs Utah Temple in 2023, when 587,809 guests toured the temple.

The largest open houses in church history, by attendance, were for the Provo City Center Temple, which drew more than 800,000 guests during a seven-week open house in 2016, and the Washington D.C. Temple, which drew 750,000 visitors in 1974.

The renovation

The major feature of the renovation was the addition of a base isolation system, which included a massive excavation operation to place hundreds of seismic shock absorbers underneath the enormous temple.

The project to seismically strengthen the temple was expected to last four years, but the workers repeatedly found complications in a structure built by pioneers in the old West.

The delicate work included a three-year effort to drill 46 holes down from the temple’s towers through the walls and to the base isolators placed under the temple to make room for bundles of post-tension cabling.

Workers used diamond-edged drill bits to bore their way from the temple’s towers to its historic foundation in what was a precision job — the drilling could not deviate more than 10 millimeters from center. Now when an earthquake hits the temple, the tension in the cables will compress the 185-million pound building together in one piece that will together on top of the base isolators, separate from the shaking ground.

The drilling work was finished last month.

The exterior work has been extensive, with the removal and cleaning of all the features on the temple’s six towers, including the Angel Moroni statue 210 feet above the ground. The statue was refurbished with a new 14-carat gold leaf covering and returned to the top of the temple in April 2024.

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The renovation will add significantly to the temple’s capacity.

“Our goal at the onset, one, was to preserve the temple,” Brent Roberts, managing director of the Special Projects Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, told the Deseret News in October. “And, two, was to do all we could to potentially double the capacity of the temple, which we did of course in the baptistry” with a second font.

“We’ve done more than double the capacity for sealings,” he said. “Some Saturday afternoons out here, they’re going to have 22 different rooms concurrently going with live sealings,” up from 13.

The new rooms also are larger.

Roberts has called the renovation the biggest preservation project in Latter-day Saints history.

The church has released many images of the interior renovation as well:

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The church also released renderings of what others parts of the interior will look like:

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