David Muir House

The David Muir house is a black rock, one story hall and parlor house built by the stone mason David Muir. Muir was a Scottish convert to the Mormon church, and worked frequently with Thomas Frazer, the stone mason responsible for most of the black rock homes in Beaver. Frazer’s workbooks frequently refer to Muir’s assistance. The stone cross gable with its granite trim is unique among all the stone houses in Beaver.

Located at 295 North 300 West in Beaver, Utah and added to the National Register of Historic Places (#80003887) on November 25, 1980.

David Muir was born in Scotland and immigrated to Utah as a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He lived first in Cedar City, Utah, before settling permanently (c. 1857) in Beaver. Muir was a stonemason and built his own home, from his own designs. This is the only extant building in Beaver that he built in its entirety and his style of construction is easily distinguished by two characteristics:
1) high-relief mortar joints,
2) very nicely cut basalt blocks. Also unique to his home are a stone tower and a vernacular, Eastlake style porch.

Although this is probably the only building completely designed and built by David Muir in Beaver, Muir frequently worked for a contractor named Thomas Frazer. Frazer was a fellow Scots convert to the L.D.S. religion and both men learned their masonry skills in Scotland before immigrating to the new world. Frazer built most of the black rock buildings in Beaver and his extant workbooks (mostly from the 1880s) mention David Muir as his trusted and frequently employed assistant.

The David Muir House is a small, hall and parlor plan residence one story in height. There are four windows and a central door placed with bilateral symmetry across the front façade and an end-wall chimney at each gable end. The house is constructed of local black rock (basalt) and displays meticulous craftsmanship in its stonework. All the stone blocks on the front façade are well squared and the mortar joints are beaded in high relief. These mortar joints are raised approximately 1/2 inch and are of a uniform width, approximately 3/4 inch. Only the front façade displays cut stone and beaded mortar joints, the other three facades consisting of stuccoed rubble rock.

Also on the front of the house is a very unusual stone cross gable (unique in Beaver) that terminates in a gable at the top. The top is covered with brown granite coping and the coping rolls into scrolls that form brackets for a granite sphere.

The woodwork on the house includes a vernacular interpretation of an Eastlake style porch, the only such example still extant in Beaver. The eaves are trimmed with a plain, yet substantial, Greek Revival style cornice that form boxed returns on the gable ends.

Circa 1885 a one room lean-to was added on to the rear of the original two room house. It is built of a local pink rock (tuff) that comes from a quarry in the Beaver River Canyon. The pink rock quarry was commercially exploited beginning c. 1881, and because it was so much easier to work than the black basalt, the tuff soon became the exclusive building rock. Also at this same time, a pink rock granary with a basement was built towards the rear of the property. It is two rooms and its rock is well cut and well layed.

The second addition to the house was constructed c. 1895 and is situated on the rear, giving the home a rectangular plan with four rooms. The walls of this section consist of 2 x 4’s infilled with roughly cut pink rock. Horizontal siding was then hung over the exterior while the interior was finished with lath and plaster.