Shomaker House

This house was the first home in Manti to have electricity. It was built in 1851 by Ezra Shomaker. The east addition was added around 1900. Shomaker served as Manti mayor twice. the house was recently rescued from demolition and is being restored by Shannon and Jim Miller.

The house is the 2nd oldest home still standing on its original foundation in Utah (after the Fielding Garr Ranch House).

It is located at 194 West 400 North in Manti, Utah and was added to the National Historic Register (#14000864) on October 15, 2014.

The Ezra and Abigail Tuttle Shomaker House, is a 1½-story stone and brick house, located at 194 W. 400 North in Manti, Sanpete County, Utah. The Greek Revival and Victorian Eclectic-style house was built in three major phases between 1866 and 1895. The earliest section of the house is a 1½-story Greek Revival-style hall-parlor house built of cream-colored limestone circa 1866. Around 1880, a one-story stone ell was built on the rear. The final wing was built of brick circa 1895, and modified the floor plan to a double cross wing or H plan. The north porch was enclosed a few years later, and later rebuilt in 2010. The house is built on a stone foundation with some areas of newer concrete. The roof was resheathed with small grey fiberglass shingles in 2004. The Shomaker House sits on the southwest corner of a one-acre lot with new landscaping. The property includes a non-contributing altered stone garage, and a contributing group of small, connected agricultural structures. A non-contributing garage and workshop was built behind the house in 2007. The current owners, who purchased the house in 2002, have completed a substantial eight-year rehabilitation of the house. The 2003 to 2011 rehabilitation has reversed a considerable amount of damage and alteration to the property that occurred during in the 1980s and 1990s, and has modified the interior plan.

The Shomaker house faces west. The walls of the hall parlor (west wing) are built of a cream-colored oolite limestone laid in coursed ashlar. The blocks are finished to various lengths but trimmed to a uniform height to allow for even courses. The surface of the stones is only lightly tooled. The mortar was later replaced with a Portland cement mix, but the current owners have recently removed the concrete and replaced it with a lime-based mortar. The foot print of the west wing is approximately 36 feet by 19 feet. The ridgeline of the simple gable roof runs parallel to 200 West. The façade (west elevation) of the hall parlor is symmetrical with a full-width porch. The porch deck is a circa 1950s concrete replacement for the original wood deck. The porch roof is hipped and supported on square columns featuring paneled-box capitals and plinths. There are four full columns and two engaged columns with slender arched brackets between them. This Victorian Eclectic-style porch was probably added to the house circa 1895. A similar porch is found on the south elevation of the ell. The porch elements were rehabilitated and missing pieces replicated during the recent rehabilitation. The porch wood is painted white.

Around 1920, the front porch was altered to add a sleeping-porch dormer to the center of the façade.
The sleeping porch had screened windows and a shingled base. The screens were replaced with aluminum windows in the 1970s. During the recent rehabilitation, the heavily damaged dormer was retained, but rebuilt to be open with simpler style to complement the classical elements of the façade. The dormer is sheathed with narrow boards. It has a new door flanked by two double-hung windows. The pedimented dormer roof is supported by columns similar to the main porch, and a wood balustrade with simple square balusters runs between each of the columns. The west-facing principal façade is symmetrically composed, with a center door flanked by a pair of double-hung vinyl windows on the main floor with false muntins in a nine-over-nine pattern. The original wood casings were retained to frame the window openings. The limestone stone lintels and sills are dressed, and also serve as a decorative element for all the window openings.