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Show 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 had six children. After she" bought the house in 1909, she lived in it until 1920 when she moved to Salt Lake City. Dwing her time in the house it was known for its immaculate condition and its fireplaces, silver service, rugs and furniture. In 1925 she sold the house to A.C. Christensen. A.C. Christensen was leasing the Lagoon Amusement Park at the time he owned the house. A fireworks display at Lagoon caused sparks that caught on the wind and blew to the roof a"nd started a fire . In 1936 May purchased the house from Christensen and owned it again until 1946. She died at 101 in Los Angeles in 1966. ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: significant architecturally as the only extant example of a foursquare house type in " Farmington. The foursquare or box house type was one of the most popular of the early 20th century. Can also 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. Foursquare houses 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. 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 one remaining in Farmington (A reconnaissance level survey in 1991 reveals no other examples of the two-story foursquare house type.) |
