Salt Lake Modern | St. Mary's Neighborhood Tour
Saturday, June 16th | 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Tour headquarters will be at the Monument Park 17th Ward building of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [located at 2795 East Crestview Drive]. Parking will be available in the building’s lot, or in safe, legal locations on the street.
Admission is $15 for advance tickets (before Wednesday, June 13 at COB), $15 for Utah Heritage Foundation / Salt Lake Modern members (including day of tour), and $20 on the day of the tour.
Get tickets and additional information at www.slmodern.org.
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After the successful, October 2010 tour of the Westshire neighborhood, a community designed by architect Ron Molen in West Valley City, Salt Lake Modern is hosting a tour of four private, mid-century modern homes in the St. Mary's and Oak Hills neighborhoods above Foothill Blvd. in Salt Lake City.
The original land of the St. Mary's neighborhood above Foothill Blvd. was once dominated by St. Mary’s of the Wasatch, a private Catholic women's college, and later a high school. The school also housed a convent and was in operation from 1926 until it was demolished in 1972. Two remaining stone gates, now part of the architecture of a private residence, served as the entrance to the school and later to the Salt Lake City Golf Course.
Named after a drive-in theater built in 1951, the Oak Hills neighborhood is located north of St. Mary's. The Oak Hills Drive-in was located just southeast of Hogle Zoo, at 2775 East 1000 South, and had a 400-car capacity. The drive-in, as well as the drive-in's operator Fox Intermountain Theatres, received national publicity when the August 1958 issue of Life Magazine featured a large color photograph of the drive-in and a shot of Charlton Heston in a scene from “The Ten Commandments” on the screen. In the foreground, a sampling of cars representative of the time. In the background, an amazing view of what east-bench residents continue to enjoy every evening - the beautiful lights of the Salt Lake valley.
Now just a memory, two once-significant Salt Lake landmarks have given way, and name, to two prominent east bench communities. With construction concentrated in the 60’s and 70’s, these neighborhoods include a rare collection of mid-century modern homes, adapted for modern living, that were designed by Utah’s leading modern architects.
Historical information courtesy of: Kirk Huffaker, Utah Heritage Foundation
Photos courtesy of: Salt Lake Modern
