The Alma Stakes house is significant on the basis of its architectural style and plan. The Alma Staker house is one of the two best extant examples of the Greek Revival-inspired “temple form” vernacular house type in Utah. Early photographs and documents indicate that the “temple form” plan was quite popular in Salt Lake City and other early settlements, yet few of these structures have survived into the 1970s. While other “temple form” houses can be found in Utah and parts of Idaho, the Alma Staker house is the most complete rendering of the house form. The early building date and use of unsheathed adobe make the house additionally important as an example of early vernacular building in Utah.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, American architects self-consciously rejected older English-derived styles and in democratic enthusiasm embraced the classical ideals of Greece. The early 1800s witnessed the growth of the Greek Revival architectural period in American building. While the classic style was used primarily for public buildings, domestic architecture in New England was dramatically influenced by classical motifs. A favorite house developed in the Northeast “with a pedimented end toward the street.” This house is often called a “temple form” house, because pf its similarity to Greek monumental architecture. The Greek Revival called for a “monumental type of house with a two-story central body fronted with a pedimented portico arid flanked by one-story wings.”

This “temple form” house is seen in New England areas usually as a magnificent dwelling fronted by colossal columns. Its popularity, however, carried it into upstate New York in the 1830s where the house was geared down to a modest gable-façade-type house. The type was initially considered a “town house,” but after its widespread acceptance came to be a common farm dwelling all along the northern frontier. Full-blown, the house has a central unit flanked by two side wings. Variants of the temple form house can be found with only one or even no side wings. While the early temple form houses had the main door on the central unit, a modified version of the house which moved the door on to the side wing became increasingly popular during the mid-19th century in the northern Midwest.

The above text is from the National Register of Historic Places, it was nominated (#79002509) July 9, 1979 and is located at 95 East 300 South in Mt Pleasant, Utah. for a few years I lived just across the parking lot from it and watched as they remodeled over 2019 and 2020. Continuing on below is more from the nomination form:

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were familiar with the “temple form” house in upstate New York, they knew it at Kirtland, Ohio, and built numerous examples at Nauvoo. The Vinson Knight House and the Aaron Johnson houses at Nauvoo are all examples of this house-type which do not have side wing extensions. Brigham Young’s stepped gable façade Nauvoo house has the internal floor plan associated with the temple form house even if it lacks external Greek Revival treatment.

The Mormon exodus to the Great Basin brought this familiar house plan-now deeply imbedded in the folk building tradition to Utah. The modified temple plan, with the front door on the side wing, is the variant of the house plan which is found most readily in Utah. Gable-façade houses consisting of only the center unit are also encountered in parts of Utah and Idaho, but the full blown temple plan with side wings is quite rare within the state’s borders. One house at Willard conforms to the plan but lacks the central gable door. The Jacob Houtz House in Springville and the Alma Staker House in Mt. Pleasant are the only two fully realized temple form houses which have been located in the state. As one of the main vernacular house types imported to Utah, these houses are significant as rare but important segments of the historic landscape. In Sanpete County, an area rich in vernacular building, the Alma Staker house is singular in its form and construction.

The Alma Staker house speaks historically in a number of ways. It illustrates dramatically the syncretism of established eastern tradition (the house form) with novel western environment (the use of adobe construction). It at once demonstrates continuity and change, two essential elements of Mormon settlement in Utah. The house also helps to document the range of variation within the Mormon building tradition. This house, taken along with the many central unit and central unit and wing variants also found in the area, helps paint a picture of the rich diversity found in Utah’s early architectural heritage.

The Staker family was originally from Canada. Nathan Staker, Alma’s father, was born in 1801 on a farm near Cataquera, Ontario Province. Nathan studied as a youth to be a Methodist minister and in the early 1830s was converted to Mormonism. Nathan joined the gathering at Kirtland with his wife Jane Richmond. In 1837 their fourth child, Alma, was born.

Richmond. In 1837 their fourth child, Alma, was born. In March of 1838 the family removed to Jackson County Missouri. On the journey to Missouri Nathan found work at Springfield Missouri and the family remained there until moving to Pike County in Illinois just south of Nauvoo.

1846 found the Stakers at Pigeon Grove, Iowa. Nathan’s wife Jane Richmond died of smallpox. In 1852 as the family was preparing to move west. Nathan took his family to Pleasant Grove in 1853. Nathan Staker remarried here to Eliza Cussworth Burton in 1857.

Alma Staker found a bride in the previous year, marrying Elizabeth Young in 1856 at Mt. Pleasant. Alma received the patent deed to the lot where the house now stands in 1870 but possibly could have been living on the lot much earlier. The 1853 attempt to settle Mt. Pleasant was thwarted by Indian hostilities and the first permanent settlement did not occur until 1859. The fort was built that year and activity centered around its protective walls until the late 1860s when a “Co-op” store was organized (1867) and the city incorporated (1868). While dating the Staker house cannot be precise, it seems that the dwelling was probably completed in the early 1870s.

Staker was a sawyer, carpenter, and farmer and was a United Order member and a high priest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In 1907, the Staker family sold the house to Charles Augusta Jones for $500. Charles married Augusta O. Madsen in 1895 and Carole J. Burton, the present owner, is their daughter.

The temple-form house was found primarily in an area which changed dramatically during the late nineteenth century, consequently very few of these houses survive today. The pure temple-form was often modified in a number of ways. The most common type is referred to as a “modified” temple form in which the door is set in the side wing. Another variant of the house type is evident in the Staker House. The door is centered on the gable façade, it does not have a central or side passage, and may or may not have side wings (see plan). The Staker House is one of only two houses identified in the state to have a door centered on the gable façade and two side wings. The other example is the John B. Kelly House (422 S. 200 W. in Salt Lake City), also listed in the National Register.(*)