Coordinates: 40°46′11″N 111°53′20.5″W / 40.76972°N 111.889028°W / 40.76972; -111.889028
The Lion House was built in 1856 by Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, Utah to accommodate members of his enormous family. A polygamist, Young's family ultimately included more than two dozen wives, fathered 57 biological children, and had many adopted, foster, and stepchildren as well. He owned residences throughout Salt Lake City and the Utah Territory, but many of his wives and children were housed in The Lion House. The house contains large public rooms on the ground floor with 20 bedrooms on the upper floors, and was home to as many as twelve of Young's wives including Eliza Roxey Snow and to many of the children in Young's extended family. The Lion House is connected by a series of rooms used as offices to The Beehive House, Young's official residence.
Truman O. Angell, Brigham Young's brother-in-law by his legal wife Mary Ann Angell and who designed the Salt Lake City Temple was also involved in the design of this home, which got its name from the statue of a lion over the front entrance, made by William Ward.
The house is situated at 63 East South Temple, near the corner of South Temple and State Street just one block east of Temple Square. It is adjacent and connected by a suite of offices to Young's other official residence, the Beehive House.
Famous quotes containing the words lion, house and/or lake:
“Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail
Our lion now will foreign foes assail.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“This house was but a slight departure from the hollow tree, which the bear still inhabits,—being a hollow made with trees piled up, with a coating of bark like its original.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)