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Sanpete's Scandinavian
Architecture
By Peter L. Goss
The cultural heritage of the Sanpete Valley has been greatly influenced
by those pioneering saints who arrived first in the Salt Lake Valley
from the Scandinavian countries and then were assigned to colonize central
Utah.
Many were farmers, while some had apprenticed in their home country
as carpenters, stone masons, cabinetmakers and furniture builders. No
matter what their occupation, consciously or unconsciously, Danes, Norwegians
and Swedes left an imprint on the valley by way of material culture.
The architecture of their farm buildings, cabins and houses were influenced
by construction techniques and building forms from back home. Norwegians
and Swedes were familiar with northern European log construction, while
Danes favored half-timbered building due to the deforestation of Denmark
by the seventeenth century.
Norwegian Niels Peter Ostensen was one of the earliest settlers of Fairview
and built a substantial log home, now demolished, and a log barn in
the 1860s. Fortunately the barn has survived.
This two level, rectangular structure has a base of oolitic limestone
enclosing the stables and work areas. The upper level, used for hay
storage, is built of log with fine dovetail notches at the corners similar
to those found on Ostensen’s house.
The 40-foot length of the barn necessitated splicing the logs with pegged
joints. The Ostensen barn and the former house represent a fine example
of northern European log construction in the northern part of the Sanpete
Valley.
Another example of log construction is the Charles A. Fredrickson cabin
in Ephraim. According to architectural historian Thomas Carter, who
has studied the Sanpete’s Scandinavian material culture in detail,
Ephraim was a center of Scandinavian settlement.
Fredrickson, a wheelwright, and his wife, Sarah, were Danes and they
occupied this cabin in the 1880s. Their quarters consisted of a 15-foot
by 17-foot single room with a sleeping loft above accessed by the exterior
staircase. Here the logs were hewn square and dovetailed at the corners.
An unusual feature of this log construction is the use of two vertical
mortised logs on either side of the front door. Later frame additions
were added to the rear of the cabin and a wheelwright shop was also
located on the premises.
The three-part house, also referred to as the Swedish “parstuga”
or pair house, became popular throughout Scandinavia by the beginning
of the nineteenth century. This house type, consisting of three rooms,
was also found in other parts of Europe. The central room functioned
as the entrance to the house and in some examples functioned as the
main living space.
One of the oldest and most distinctive homes in Ephraim is the three-part
Claus P. Anderson house built in the 1870s. Not much is known about
Anderson, but he is believed to have been the builder of this one-and-a-half
story adobe.
He sold the house to Soren Nielsen, a Norwegian who had lived in Ephraim
since 1856. Both gable ends of the house contain stove chimneys and
a fireplace was located at the rear of the central room. This latter
feature is unusual since the central room of the three-part house often
contained chimneys on the sidewalls of the central room.
A dominant architectural feature on the façade is the cross gable
with a round arched door. The exposed adobe brick walls were plastered
sometime in the 1950s.
Two fine masonry examples of the three-part house in the Sanpete Valley
are the Barentsen house in Fountain Green and the Monsen/Larsen house
in Spring City.
Andrew M. Barentsen, a Dane, settled in Fountain Green in the late 1860s
where he farmed and raised livestock. His three-part, brick house was
built by local mason Thomas Morgan in 1878. The chimneys, indented from
the side walls of the house indicate the position of the central room
in this three-part plan.
Morgan’s craftsmanship is still apparent in the brick cornice
below the roofline and in the gables of the end walls of the house.
The lintel over the front door is inscribed with “Erected 1878,”
a common characteristic this mason’s work.
The Monsen/Larsen house in Spring City was constructed in 1883 and is
one of the best examples of a three-part house in native oolitic  limestone.
Like the Barentsen house, the width of the central room is indicated
by the indented chimneys along the ridgeline. The cross gable, like
that of the Claus Anderson house in Ephraim, contains a second story
door framed by two windows.
This large stone house contains a rear wing also of oolitic stone. Monson,
a Swede, was a miller and farmer. He supposedly built this house for
his daughter and son-in-law but the mason’s name is unknown.
The most decorative example of these Scandinavian-influenced residences
is the Ephraim home of Norwegian Carl Uckermann and his family. This
wood frame example of the three-part plan was constructed during 1880s.
Uckermann was a furniture builder and on the house’s interior
there is a curved staircase and balustrade attesting to his fine craftsmanship.
He also maintained a water-powered planing mill on his property.
The highly decorative woodwork located on the cornice and on the porch
gable is very similar to that found on nineteenth century wood frame
houses in Norway.
Material objects such as furniture, quilts, and crocheted items crafted
by the early Scandinavians have been passed down from generation to
generation. For the most part they are protected in drawers, chests
or placed in family rooms. But what about the architecture?
Much of it is still found in every community in the county, but much
has been lost for a variety of reasons over the past 30 years. We can
only hope that those who consider this cultural landscape important
to the heritage of the valley and the state will work toward its preservation
so that future generations of Sanpeters and others will be able to enjoy
it.
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