The Utah Arts Council worked to secure the cooperation of Salt Lake City and H. David Burton of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to renovate the Chase Home in the middle of Liberty Park. Once owned by Brigham Young, it predates the Beehive House and stands on its original location. This is the largest adobe structure in the intermountain west. Although owned by the City, it is secured, rent free, for use by the Folk Arts Program for twenty years (to 2019) to house staff offices and the Utah State Folk Arts Museum. We found, and, with the Governor’s help, acquired a large building (“Art House”) immediately west of Arts Council offices located in the Rio Grande Depot. We renovated Art House which is now the first safe facility for the Utah government’s 1,500 piece State Art Collection. We patterned our newly created collection area after that of Brigham Young University with storage and staging area walls that are environmentally safe for the collection. We worked with the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics. Bonnie Stephens was co-chair with Gretta Peterson of the selection committee that hired the wonderful Raymond Grant as head of the (more…)
