Today's Miscellaneous Monday is about Photography!

The City of Salt Lake purchased this mansion just recently and on Saturday had an open house so citizens can help figure out what to do with it. It was built in 1893 for a man from Germany who was a brewer. The pamphlet said that it cost $13,000. to build back then. Man! have times changed! Their open house was from 2-4pm and we got there soon after 2pm and had to park WAYY down the street and THEN it took a whole hour to get through it because there were SO MANY PEOPLE there. WE had to wait for people to come down the stairs before we could go up, and wait for people to come up before we could come down. It was crowded and smelled like an old musty house that's seen better days, BUT it WAS BEAUTIFUL. I think I will be using that word a little too much here. BEcause there were so many little details, so many little beautiful details. It's the little details that make things really special. And this was a special mansion. I was happy to get to go and take part in our local government.

Here's a statue of Mary out in front of the mansion. After the mansion wasn't being used as a house anymore it was turned into a convent for the sisters of Our Lady of Victory and after that was used as a halfway house for men who were homeless or on drugs. So there was a lot of wear and tear and too many modern "fixes" that made a prettty room into an ugly office.

Here's a detail from the front steps. You just don't get to see detail work like this anymore.

To the left you can see that the stairs are horrible... but, at least they are protected on both sides by these pretty stone/concrete work.

Here's a fireplace in a front room of the mansion. Such beautiful tiles!

Here's a close up on the decorative tile on that fireplace.

The carriage house. It was all boarded up. No one allowed inside. Nice view of the smokestacks in the background, eh? When it was built it was 2 miles away from downtown and out in the middle of nowhere. Now it is by itself in the middle of an industrial area and behind Questar Gas (we could SMELL the natural gas) and a freeway is right across the street from it.

Our neighborhood is 9 blocks north of here and 50 years ago it was out in the middle of nowhere too. It used to have natural springs and a big dairy. My how things change!

Here's a beautiful wall air vent... in the basement. The basement was, well, basementy ew. but, in the middle of it all was this beautiful air vent.

Here's the inside of the front door as we left. I wish I had been able to take a picture of the tile on the floor right here, but, like I said there were so many people coming and going, I was lucky to be able to stand still long enough to take this one.

Isn't this a beautiful stone bench? It was outside in the back yard next to the carriage house.

I want one in front of my house! I also want some pretty statues of St. Francis of Assissi.

Anyway, it was a nice tour. I took a ton of pics. I think some of them are kind of good. I hope you enjoyed some of the neater details of this mansion that could some day be an art / cultural / community center.???