Attention turns to fixing historic Fisher Mansion as carriage house renovation nears completion
The Fisher Mansion in Salt Lake City on Aug. 28, 2019. Salt Lake City plans to begin work to stabilize the historic building in 2024. (Carter Williams, KSL.com)
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SALT LAKE CITY — Despite living in the Salt Lake Valley for most of his life, Baron Gajkowski was completely unfamiliar with the Fisher Mansion and its history until he was recently invited to tour its adjacent carriage house, a separate building being converted into a new recreation hub along the Jordan River Parkway.
But Gajkowski, a project manager for the developer company CW Urban, found himself immediately awestruck as he toured the 129-year-old building designed by Richard Kletting.
“It was so cool to walk through and see the historic architecture,” Gajkowski said Thursday.
While the tour was enlightening, he also learned the risks the mansion faces. It received some damage from the 5.7 magnitude earthquake that struck Salt Lake County in March 2020. Then, earlier this year, a vandal swooped in and stole the original brass fence outside of the property before it could be restored.
The first steps in saving the building are now starting to fall in place.
Tyler Murdock, Salt Lake City Public Lands deputy director, told the Salt Lake City Historic Landmark Commission Thursday that the city plans to begin work to stabilize the mansion in 2024, though more work will be needed afterward to restore the building to its former glory. It’s also unclear how the building will be used in the future. The stabilization project is one of many included in a sales tax revenue bond the Salt Lake City Council approved earlier this year.
He provided the update while discussing the progress of the department’s Fisher carriage house renovation project, which is on pace to be completed in March 2023. Once complete, the building will house various department offices and a small community event space.
A brief history of the property
Both buildings date back to 1893, in Salt Lake City’s Poplar Grove neighborhood at 1206 W. 200 South.
Kletting designed the building and carriage house for Albert Fisher, a prominent brewer who opened one of the state’s first breweries in 1884. If the last name sounds familiar today, his great-grandson and others revived the Fisher Brewing Company brand in 2017, after the original business went defined in 1967.
Its architect is also a name people may have heard before. Kletting went on to design several iconic buildings in Salt Lake City and other parts of the state in his lifetime, leaving a long list of work that includes the original Saltair (also completed in 1893), the Enos Wall Mansion, the New York Hotel and , of course, the Utah State Capitol.
An undated historical photo of the Fisher Mansion in Salt Lake City, which was built in 1893. (Photo: Deseret News Archives)
It remained a home until 1945, when it was converted into a convent by Our Lady Queen of Peace and Our Lady of Victory Missionary Sisters. It then became a residential substance abuse facility in the 1970s before closing in 2006. Salt Lake City acquired the property that year and helped it land on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
It has been a struggle to figure out what to do with the property up until recently.
“There is a lot of disappointment in what has happened over the last few years, especially, and since there was vandalism,” said Nan Weber, a Poplar Grove resident and historian.
Carriage house project nears completion
Mostly vacant for well over a decade, several city master plans marked the Fisher Mansion and carriage house for some sort of future public use.
The ball started rolling when the city received a federal grant in 2014 that helped pay for the seismic upgrades of the Fisher carriage house. Then, in 2019, the Salt Lake City Council approved a $1.3 million plan to turn the carriage house into a Salt Lake City Public Lands office space, recreation hub and event space.
Photos of the renovation work inside the Fisher carriage house presented to the Salt Lake City Historic Landmark Commission on Thursday. (Photo: Salt Lake City Public Lands)
There have been a few delays since then, but crews recently completed landscaping and irrigation improvements, as well as “many of the preservation elements,” according to Murdock. He said the project is still on target to be completed in March 2023.
The carriage house will hold officers for the Salt Lake City Park Ranger program, as well as the Salt Lake City Public Lands’ outreach and volunteer leaders. It’ll include six cubicle spaces and a 1,200 square foot open room that can be reserved for community meetings, small events or rotating exhibit space.
It’s clear there’s interest in the space. Fisher Brewing Company hosted a beer garden event there that attracted 3,000 people over the span of two days in October.
“It was a wonderful event and I really think this space and this type of event is how we can move forward in activating the outdoor space of the Fisher Mansion and carriage house,” Murdock said.
Saving the Fisher Mansion
With the project nearing completion, the city is ready to turn to the Fisher Mansion now. Like the carriage house, the city will start with stabilizing before the renovation. Initial work is expected to cost somewhere around $3 million.
The city will have some help as it moves forward, too.
How could you not cheer for and root for and do whatever you can to preserve such a wonderful part of our history?
– Baron Gajkowski
Gajkowski started to become more involved in the Fisher properties following his tour earlier this year. That led to an invitation for a group of others — like Weber — interested in preserving the building, leading to the creation of the Friends of Fisher Mansion, a recently certified local nonprofit.
He and Weber agree that the earthquake and vandalism incidents helped move the Fisher Mansion up on the list of preservation priorities, referring to the vandalism incident as the “last straw.”
“People were saying, ‘OK, let’s not let it go further than it already has,'” Weber said. “It has to be now, so subsequent things that may happen don’t further destroy that building.”
The nonprofit made its first public appearance at Thursday’s commission meeting, where the group expressed interest in helping the city restore the building in the coming years. Both Gajkowski and Weber say they are thrilled that the city is working to stabilize the building, just in case there is another earthquake that could cause even more damage.
“Part of our goal is to receive adequate funding — private or public — to move forward with the revitalization, and to really make that building pop like it should,” Gajkowski said.
The nonprofit’s goal is to preserve the mansion and turn it into a community “centerpiece.”
It may already be just that. Gajkowski points to the success of last month’s beer garden event as proof that residents care about the future of the building.
“How could you not cheer for and root for and do whatever you can to preserve such a wonderful part of our history?” he said. “There is quite a bit of excitement out there and our goal is to keep that growing, where it can continue to be such a wonderful part (of the community) and well-known as well.”
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Carter Williams is an award-winning reporter who covers general news, outdoors, history and sports for KSL.com. He previously worked for the Deseret News. He is a Utah transplant by the way of Rochester, New York.
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