Topped with a bee skep that would intimidate any normal honeybee, the exterior of Brigham Young’s house in downtown Salt Lake City is surrounded by two stories of balconies with rows of windows opening onto them. The Beehive House—built in 1854 and designed by Young's brother-in-law, by his first wife, Truman O. Angell (who also designed the Salt Lake Temple and the adjacent Lion House)—was constructed to house Brigham Young’s many wives and consequent children. So was the Lion House. In all, Young had 55 wives (although some marriages may not have been consummated), whom he housed, with the 57 children, in houses across Utah Territory. The Lion House was home to a dozen wives—the building has 20 bedrooms. The Beehive House served as the executive mansion of the Utah Territory; Young's first polygamous wife, Lucy Ann Decker Young, lived there with her children and played hostess.
Mark Twain, who visited Salt Lake on his way west, wrote a tall tale in his book Roughing It. The incident cheekily imagines Brigham Young at the Beehive House, lamenting his life as the father of so many children.
“Once a gentleman gave one of my children a tin whistle—a veritable invention of Satan, sir, and one which I have an unspeakable horror of, and so would you if you had eighty or ninety children in your house,” Twain writes. “But the deed was done—the man escaped. I knew what the result was going to be, and I thirsted for vengeance. I ordered out a flock of Destroying Angels, and they hunted the man far into the fastnesses of the Nevada mountains. But they never caught him. I am not cruel, sir—I am not vindictive except when sorely outraged—but if I had caught him, sir, so help me Joseph Smith, I would have locked him into the nursery till the brats whistled him to death.”
You may recognize…
Truman O. Angell’s work can also be spotted on these iconic Utah landmarks.
Logan Temple, completed 1884
St. George Temple, completed 1877
Utah Territorial Capitol, Fillmore, completed 1855
Lion House, completed 1856
Take a Tour
Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., conducted by missionaries, is free
Where: 63 E. South Temple, a block east of Temple Square