William Capener House

The William Capener house is significant as one of several remaining stone residences in Centerville which were constructed during the town’s first period of growth and development. Stone dwellings here reflect the move from smaller log and adobe cabins of the pioneer years (1847-1860) to more substantial 9 permanent dwellings as Centerville entered a period of agricultural stability and prosperity (1860-1880). Built c.1875, the Capener house is an example of a two-story, single-cell type house with flanking wings, a dwelling form which has been recorded in the northeastern United States but which is rare in Utah. Capener was a carpenter and cabinetmaker by trade and lived in the house until his death in 1884.

The William Capener House is located at 252 North 400 East in Centerville, Utah and added to the National Register of Historic Places (#84002172) on January 5, 1984.

Upon the arrival of Mormon pioneers in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake in July, 1847, settlers immediately explored adjoining lands, seeking favorable sites for colonization. During the fall and winter of 1847, Thomas Grover pastured stock near a creek along the west bench of the Wasatch Mountains about twelve miles north of Salt Lake City. Joined by a few families in the Spring of 1848, a small settlement was established. In 1849, a townsite was surveyed and in the following year, Sanford Porter was appointed “presiding elder” over the Mormon community. Initially called the Deuel Creek Settlement (after the Deuel brothers who joined Grover therein 1849), and then the Cherry Creek Settlement, the town eventually came to be called Centerville by virtue of being situated midway between two other new towns, Farmington and Bountiful.

In 1852, a Mormon “ward” (congregation) was organized in the burgeoning settlement, and in 1854, a rock fort enclosing nine blocks of the townsite was constructed. The fort was one of the earliest of several pioneer structures to be made of native rock in Centerville. The town’s first structures had been made of adobe, a ubiquitous building material in early Mormon colonies. By the 1860s, however, most builders were using the native stone for their houses, schools, churches and stores. Due to an abundance of strong metamorphic and igneous rock in local fi lds( #nd streams, the predilection to use this material continued into the early 1880s, by which time bricK had become a more popular building material.

During the heyday of stone usage from the late 1850s through the mid-1880s, a wide variety of Mormon housetypes employed the multi-colored material. Although no scholarly study of Centerville 1 s residential architecture has been conducted to date, existing building surveys show that roughly twenty pioneer period rock homes remain in Centerville. These range from simple one-story, rectangular structures to more complex 1 1/2 and two-story residences with variegated plans and pretentions of style. Aside from their use of rock, the homes do not seem to be related in design or reflect the work of any particular builder. Each house has an identity somewhat distinct from the others, although some general 19th-century building traits are apparent, i.e., symmetrical facades, the imported Renaissance method of laying out dimensions of floorplans, and the use of locally made shingles, window sashes, framing lumber and trim. The Capener house’s two-story central section with flanking wings structure is only rarely encountered in Utah. This house form is associated with upstate New York and the Western Reserve area of Ohio, and it was one of a number of traditional forms brought to Utah by the Mormon settlers.

Many of Centerville’s extant stone houses have been severely remodeled. Additions, stuccoed rock walls, changes in original window sizes and shapes and other alterations have diluted the integrity of nearly all of Centerville’s older rock homes, including, to an extent, the William Capener house. In 1982-83, the house was remodeled by its current owner. Dormer windows were placed in both of the flanking hipped wings and across the rear of the house. While matching the materials of the original house, these additions may affect the historic integrity at the home.

William Capener, the original owner and builder, was born in London, England on July 30, 1806. In 1828, William married Sarah Verrander, also a native of London. In 1834, the couple emigrated to America, settled in Cleveland, Ohio where they ran a large hotel. In 1844, the Capeners became members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and in the fall of 1852, the family joined the main body of Mormons in Utah. They lived in Salt Lake City until 1873 when William took his family to Centerville. There he purchased a lot from Thomas Witaker and for his wife and eight children built the stone house completed in 1875.

In 1861, William married a second wife in keeping with the Mormon practice of polygamy at that time. His first wife died in 1863, leaving five children. By his second wife, Ellen Rigby, he had eleven children, including three born after the house was built. William was “sealed” (a Mormon ordinance performed in a temple, whereby a husband and wife are remarried for “eternity,” whether or not either party is alive at the time) to two additional women, but there is no evidence that they lived in his house as polygamous wives.

Capener was a builder, carpenter and cabinetmaker by trade. Like most men at the time, he also farmed. With Joseph E. Taylor as his partner, he operated a furniture dealing firm. Capener remained in Centerville until his death in 1884. Leaving 154 descendents, his life seemed otherwise unremarkable, as evidenced by this obituary comment: “Although Brother Capener was a man of no particular prominence, he was withal a strictly honest man, and such a one is said to be the noblest work of God.”

The rock home was retained by the Capener family after William’s death. His wife lived there until her death in 1908. For two years a family named Brown rented the house before heirs of Capener sold it to Samuel James Coombs in 1910. Coombs, a native of Utah, having been born in Rockville, Washington County, October 19, 1863, married Ann Eliza Alien in 1883. Samuel began a family, fathering eight children between 1884 and 1898. During these years he pursued his profession as a painter and wallpaper hanger. He aided in finishing the interiors of the Salt Lake Temple and Tabernacle. In 1910 he moved to Centerville where he purchased the Capener House and lived until his death in 1947. The home was retained by his wife until her death in 1965, at which time it passed on to her youngest son, Wallace Henry Coombs. Born April 21, 1898 Wallace was a foundryman who never married. He lived in the house until his death in 1980.

Since 1980, the Capener House has been vacant. In October of 1982, it was purchased by a general building contractor, John Marshall, and his wife Jori. They plan to restore and renovate the home, using it as their personal residence.

Still sitting on a one-half acre lot containing old trees, the house and site retains a degree of integrity of location, siting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association. Though the original design has been altered by the addition of dormers to the flanking hipped wings.