The R. Verne McCullough home was built in 1924 in Yalecrest’s Upper Yale Park subdivision. Raymond Ashton’s brother, doing business as Ashton-Jenkins Company, developed the 97 Upper Yale Park plats (Lufkin).

McCullough was an interesting character and a renaissance man: a well-known attorney (Doctor of Jurisprudence from Stanford), businessman (Crystal Palace supermarket chain and many bowling alleys), sportsman (13 divisional AAU wrestling championships), promotor (owner of McCullough’s Arena, home of wresting and boxing events), and religious scholar (teacher of SLC’s most popular Gospel Doctrine class for over 20 years) (S.L. lawyer).

The blueprints (Special collections) show two completely different designs for the McCullough home, and I wonder about the debate between McCullough and Ashton: two strong willed Utahns. The first design (dated 2 Aug 1924 in Upper Yale Park) shows a two-story Tudor Revival home with a lower-level garage on the west. The second design (undated in Upper Yale Park) shows a two-story Dutch Colonial Revival home with an above ground garage on the east. It was obviously the second – Dutch Colonial – design that was built.

Some Special Collections’ blueprints are labeled Alterations to Residence for R. Verne McCullough (undated at 1529 Yale). They consist of a very large extension to the rear (north) of the residence. The McCulloughs sold the residence in late 1945.

The McCullough home was one of the first Ashton and Evans designs in the Yalecrest neighborhood, though Ashton – on his own – had done considerable residential work there since 1914, much of it for the family firms Ashton-Jenkins and the Ashton Improvement Company. McCullough’s 1924 home was only the beginning of his work with A&E. He also contracted for the McCullough arena (1928), Crystal Palace markets (1930s), Yalecrest Ward (1936), and several duplexes and apartments.