Charles W. Nibley home adds to variety of Logan’s Historic District
Logan seems to be a town in touch with both past and future as it embraces a farm community feel but constantly becomes more modern with incoming businesses and housing developments. One section of town, the Logan Center Street Historic District, remains particularly nostalgic and calls many back to a day gone by.
This area is nestled within Logan city limits and encompasses both residential and commercial structures from 200 North to 200 South and from 200 East to 600 West. There are 450 registered structures in the district, including 60 landmarks, 250 contributory structures, and 120 non-contributory structures. Contributory structures are those which contribute to the district either architecturally or economically. These structures have been restored or kept in their original design. Non-contributory structures have been changed by either taking certain aspects of the homes and businesses away or adding “insensitive additions,” said Mark Benchley, a volunteer for the Historic District, and managing director of the Utah Festival Opera.
The Logan Historic District has been official since 1979. The statistics and requirements for owning registered structures have not changed since then, but they are currently being revised, Benchley said. According to ordinances in effect right now, businesses and residences registered as historical structures receive distinction as they are placed in national registers, but they must also follow certain restrictions. Any owner desiring to paint or change shingles on their home or business must first be reviewed by the organziation and receive a certificate of apropriateness before beginning.
Benchley has lived in the Logan Center Street Historic District since 1975. He said he enjoys living there because “the diversity of the architecture is significant. The structures are not all from one era, they show an evolution from the vernacular in the 1870’s to the 1940’s to commercial districts.”
He said he felt the large maple trees which line the streets create what is “an ideal streetscape,” and the Historic District has a “sense of place” in the area.
One home on Center Street, owned by Ray Somers, adds to this diverse atmosphere. Its broad, welcoming porch and balcony and astute pillars set the house apart from others surrounding it.
Somers’ house was built in 1904 by Charles W. Nibley, presiding bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Nibley, who also designed the Hotel Utah in Salt Lake City, styled the house in the most modern architectural style, Georgian colonial, Somers said.
The style consists of three floors. The first two have a 10-foot great hall in the middle with three rooms off either side. The top floor of the house is an attic-style, larger room.
In the time since Nibley owned the house it was a mortuary, a nursing home called Sunshine Terrace, a state-run office building, a mosquito research lab and a fraternity house for two separate fraternities before Somers acquired it in 1963.
“It was a shambles, our folks thought we’d lost our marbles,” Somers said.
But he purchased and remodeled the home to its “original relationship” because it was his late wife Josephine’s dream. They spent more than $60,000 and 35 years collecting furniture and remodeling ideas from older homes across the nation. The home is now appraised at approximately $450,000 and was placed on the Historic Register in the 1970’s.
Somers said, “I’m a member of the Victoran Society. We love Victorian architecture and old things.”
From the inlaid wood design to the horsehair parlor chairs and crystal chandeliers, Somers’ home is graced by impeccable attention to detail and years of gathering and arranging antiques. Somers feels the home is made better from its feminine feel.
“Men build houses for their wives. When you build a house with feminine accents, what does that say about what you think about your wife?” he said.
Somers’ dedicated work has yielded impressive architectural and interior decorating fruits. His front parlor took five years to build and another year to paint the accenting cornice flowers and 37 wood inlays which coordinate with the wooden fireplace mantle and hardwood floor.
And every old house would not be complete without a bit of mystery. On the top floor of Somers’ house, along with the jukebox and dancefloor, is a hidden room, secretly entered behind a facade fireplace. Somers has also given “ghost” piano recitals on his 1924 player concert grand piano.
Even the trinkets, old 1930s comic books, revolutionary and civil war guns and 1903 women’s magazines which decorate Somers’ shelves and fill his cabinets pay tribute to a day which has seemed to escape today’s society.