Smith, Hannah Maria Libby, House

About this property

The Hannah Maria Libby Smith House, also known as the Arnel Milner Home, is a historic house located in Provo, Utah, United States. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built in 1878, this home is one of the best preserved vernacular residences in Provo. Hannah Maria Libby Smith was the wife of George A. Smith, an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their son, Charles Warren Smith, built the home during a three-year period. Hannah lived there the rest of her life, raised five children and her nephew, John Henry Smith, from the time he was two, because his mother, Hannah's sister Sarah Ann Libby, had died of tuberculosis about 1849. His son, President George Albert Smith, later became a president of the LDS Church. The Hannah Maria Libby Smith House was designated to the Provo City Historic Landmarks Register on March 21, 1996, and to the National Register of Historic Places in Utah County, Utah on February 14, 1980. It has been passed down through the family. A one-story orange brick home, the Hannah Smith house is built on a rubble rock foundation. The home includes gabled roofs, double hung windows, original glass and woodwork, and wood siding for the dining room, kitchen and bathroom areas. The most unusual decor is the Federal-style lintel with brackets topping all of the windows, which are unusually large six-on-six windows. The home is still primarily original with many authentic features highlighted in a 2006 restoration. The original four rooms of brick were augmented by two more in wood which connected with the Granary building at the back of the house by 1890. The raised granary has a back door extant which was used for deliveries, but is too far off the ground to have been used for over 75 years. Before the harvest, the area was used as a summer kitchen. Although the back porch is a replacement of its predecessor, the front porch is original with the house. The two fireplaces served rooms on both front and back with brick made in Utah and one has been restored to the original oak-veining. The parlor shared a fireplace with a bedroom; the central living area adjoined Hannah's bedroom. The twelve-foot high cove ceilings are original, with one chandelier dating to the 1920s. The floors are also original, and were sanded, patched and refinished during the restoration. The panel above the built-in china cupboard in the living room was concealed until it was discovered and restored in 2006. Hannah Maria Libby was born June 29, 1828, in Ossipee, Grafton, New Hampshire. She and her sister, Sarah Ann Libby (who was ten years older) both married George Albert Smith, an apostle serving in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Sarah on 20 November 1845, Hannah on 26 January 1846 in the city of Nauvoo, Illinois. At the time she was his sixth wife, her sister his fifth.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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