James E. Talmage Home
The home was located at 410 North 300 East in Provo, Utah and was demolished for the apartments at 355 E 400 N.
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This 1992 Deseret News article says:
historic home once owned by the family of LDS Apostle James E. Talmage faces demolition unless it can be moved within a month.
The house’s owner, Sherm Hislop, intends to replace it and others at 300 East and 400 North with a 36-unit apartment complex. The Provo Planning Commission approved the project two weeks ago with the stipulation that Hislop “negotiate as much as possible” with people interested in relocating the home, built about 1895.Hislop said he can delay construction until the first of July for an Arizona couple who want to move the house to Salem. Because of its adobe brick and unreinforced masonry construction, the house might be difficult to transport, he said. The couple would replicate parts of the home that couldn’t be preserved.
Several people have expressed a desire to save the home, but Hislop said the Arizona couple are the only ones who’ve come forward with permits and money to move it. The Salem City Council approved the move May 12. Hislop estimated moving and replication costs could reach $75,000.
Elder James E. Talmage bought the house in 1901 for his parents, James J. and Susannah Talmage. Elder Talmage, a member of the Council of the Twelve of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1911 until his death in 1933, never lived in the home, said Roger Roper, a historian for the state historical society. After the elder Talmages died, their blind son, Albert M. Talmage, lived in the house.
The house is on the National Register of Historical Places. Should it be trucked out of Provo, it would be removed from the list, Roper said.
Dave Merkley, a Provo resident, wants to move the house into a historical area of the city to “keep Provo’s history in Provo.”
But he said there isn’t enough time to find a suitable lot, raise the money, obtain moving permits and schedule a mover. He estimated relocation costs at $50,000. Provo’s Board of Adjustment turned down Merkley’s request to move the house near his home at 518 E. Center St., because the lot isn’t big enough.
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“If you can’t wait a month you’re destroying a house that’s 97 years old and could stand for another 100 years,” Merkley said.
Hislop said he’d like to see the house moved.
“I’m not putting a bulldozer to anything,” he said. But if details can’t be worked out with whoever wants the house, it will be torn down. Hislop said Merkley had a chance to obtain the house, but he didn’t come up with the money or city approval to relocate it.
The Planning Commission must approve any house move within the city. The deadline to submit items for the June 10 meeting was last Tuesday. City community development director Leland Gamette offered to extend the deadline three days for Merkley, who hasn’t yet found the right lot.
2-23-2026……Me and friends lived in the Talmage house (in the picture frame shown on this page) on 345 E 400 North Provo for at least 2 years while going to BYU in the early 1990s, shortly before it was torn down. I remember hearing some of the controversy of people wanting to save it, preserve it on the historical walking tour of Provo. I kept a brick from it. Great memories of that place. 12 foot high ceilings in the lower bedrooms and a clawfoot tub in the bathroom, and maybe an original kitchen sink of the period. Just before I personally moved in, there was a Disney crew there filming scenes for the movie ‘The Witching of Ben Waggoner’, sort of a VHS only movie at the time??(not a blockbuster), but cool to see the house in it nonetheless. I bought the DVD for the memory/history of it.
Sherm Hislop was our landlord as he owned nearby Liberty Square (singles) and, as we understood it, he was attempting to buy all the houses on our block to build Union Square (married housing). Today (2026) shows Union Square comprising maybe half the block for many years.
There was a small shed/barn in the backyard at the time I lived there. Before it was torn down, I harvested a little history found there in the form of magazines from around the late 1950s. a few ‘Improvement Era’ magazines (Pre LDS Ensign magazine) and a Farm Journal magazine (1960) featuring the 15th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson. I can’t verify it, but I heard there might have been some sort of printing press in the back too, which could have been used to print some braille materials, as I know there were ties to James Talmage’s blind brother Albert having lived there after his parents passed. Good memories!