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Show OMS No. 10024-0018 NPS Form 10·900-a U1aIl WortlPerteC15.1 Formal (Revised Feb. 1993) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section No. JL Page~ Taylor, John W., Janet (Nettie) and May Rich, House, Farmington, Davis County, UT Daughters of Utah Pioneers. Flower raising and reading were her hobbies. Nettie died in Provo in 1956. May Leona Young Rich was born in 1865 in St. John, Utah to Agnes Eola Young and John Taylor Rich. She married John Whittaker Taylor in 1882 as his first wife and had six children. She bought the house at 49 East 500 North in 1909 and lived in it until she moved to Salt Lake City in 1920. At the time of the 1910 census in Farmington, May and John W. Taylor were living together with four of their children; May, Rhea, Avon and John R. While she was living there the house was known for its immaculate condition and its fireplaces, silver service, rugs and furniture. 14 She sold the house to A.C. Christensen in 1925. A.C. Christensen was leasing the nearby Lagoon Amusement Park at the time he owned the house. At one pOint during his ownership of the house a fireworks display at Lagoon caused sparks that caught on the wind and started a fire on the roof, which may have been the pOint at which the frontfaCing dormer was removed. In 1936 May repurchased the house from Christensen and owned it again until 1946. She died at 101 in Los Angeles in 1966. ARCHITECTURE: The foursquare or box house type was one of the most popular house types of the early 20th century. The simple cube-shape of the foursquare can be seen as a reaction to the asymmetrical massing and visual complexity of the Victorian styles that were popular in Utah beginning in 1880. The rectangular facade, centrally placed door and regularly spaced windows of the foursquare refer back to the Classical style houses of the early pioneer period from 1847 to 1890. They share with the foursquare symmetrical balance and Classical decorative features. Mail order house catalogs can be used as an index to the popularity of house types and styles in the early twentieth century. Foursquares began to appear in 1900 and reached their peak in popularity around World War I. One appeared on the front cover of the Sears 1908 Book of Modern Homes and accounted for 25% of the house plans sold by Sears that year.15 The foursquare was a popular house type in Utah from 1900 to 1920. The Taylor house is a very early example of the foursquare type in Utah and the only extant one in Farmington. 16 It exhibits the basic characteristics of the two-story type with its cube shape, wide one- 14Hess, Margaret S. p. . 15 Robert Schweitzer and Michael W.R. Davis. America's Favorite Houses: Mail-Order Cataloaues as a Guide to popular Early 20111 Century Houses. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1970. p. 16 A reconnaissance level survey of Farmington in 1991 reveals no other examples of the two-story foursquare house type in Farmington. .4 See continuation sheet |
