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Show also made the house more attractive. In many parts of the state a "bricking" technique was used: the outer layer of plaster was colored with red brick dye and then scored to create an adobe facsimile of a kiln-fired brick home (Fig. 48).18 "Fake stone" houses were also created by ingenious builders in a similar manner. In shaping the house exterior, the Utah builder makes his meaning clear: Gold camps and railroad towns might come and go, but the Mormon communities would stay as permanent fixtures on the land. The West might indeed be wild and woolly, but the civilized world reigned in Utah. The house goes beyond practicality of shelter in affirming that Mormonism is a "correct, wholesome, and successful way of life."19 As the folklorist Austin Fife reminds us, "their [the houses'] every line bespeaks the will to survive with dignity and the rationale of a well ordered household in a well ordered world."20 Fig. 47 Manti at sunset. Manti. The nucleated village settlement pattern successfully insulated human activity from the surrounding wilds. Decoration: Fashion on the Frontier. Driven by the desire for permanence and decency in a hostile environment, the early Utah settlers moved quickly away from the "dugout" level of subsistence. Throughout the state in the 1850s and 1860s homes began to appear which displayed an ever-increasing concern for the comforts and fashions left behind in the East. Brigham Young's first Salt Lake City residence and later the building called the Lion House (1857-58) both exhibited features of architectural design well above the minimal requirements of shelter.21 The Saints, following Brig-ham's concern for beauty, demonstrated a remarkable capability for building substantial dwellings and for keeping their designs abreast of current architectural ideas. While the folk-building tradition remained strong, popular architectural fashions were translated by builders into decorative features on the exterior of the house. Mormon society has never known the stark, self-imposed asceticism of some American religious sects. The doctrine of continued revelation has allowed the Latter-day Saints to accept theological and cultural changes in a progressive manner.22 Popular architectural fashions were greeted enthusiastically in Utah. While traditional house plans like the temple form, double-pen, hall and parlor, and central-hall types (see Figs. 51A-D) dominated much of nineteenth-century Utah building,23 these basic house plans showed a vigorous flexibility in accommodating the fashionable whims of their owners. The architectural historian Peter Goss has identified five major styles surfacing in Utah during the 1847-90 period: Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Second Empire, and the various styles associated with the Victorian period.24 Of these styles, the first three had the greatest impact on the folk builder's design and appear primarily as decoration applied to the house facade. Despite such external embellish- 42 |