The six-story Temple Square Hotel was built in 1929 for the Zions Security Corp (the financial arm of the LDS Church). With 200 rooms, it was strategically located on the NE corner of South Temple and West Temple, immediately across from the LDS Temple Square. The original press notice (S.L. to have) notes that Zions Security requested that the architects make a “three or four month” coast-to-coast survey to ensure the building had the “latest in moderate hotel design and construction.”

But the real story is more complicated. The Temple Square hotel had its beginnings in Cedar City, UT in early 1928. When Dr. Macfarlane’s wife inherited property fronting on Main Street, he saw it as ideally suited for a low-priced hotel catering to travelers just discovering the parks and scenery in Southern Utah. He would name it the Palmer Hotel after his wife’s relatives. Dr. Macfarlane engaged his friend Raymond Ashton to accompany him to Southern California to study similar hotels. All was going well in the financing and design of the Palmer Hotel until July 6, 1928, when the Iron County Record announced that W.H. Leigh would break ground for a large addition to the Leigh Hotel, previously an unthreatening competitor. Dr. Macfarlane’s wife got cold feet and convinced her husband to immediately abandon the project. The plans for the Palmer Hotel went on the shelf, until Raymond Ashton and his partner Raymond Evans were engaged to design the moderately-priced Temple Square Hotel in Salt Lake City. The initial designs for the Palmer Hotel became the raw material for the Temple Square Hotel (Mcfarlane).

Ashton & Evans announced the plans for the Temple Square Hotel about three months after the Palmer Hotel plans were shelved. Construction was of tapestry brick, concrete, and terra cotta. This was a depression-era building and the rich terra cotta ornamentation was only at street level. Each room would not only have a bath, but also a “radio receiving set.” The manager noted that the room radio “is an entirely new feature in the intermountain region and is expected to be one of the main attractions of the building” (Salt Lake’s new hostelry). In addition to the lobby, the first floor had a dining room, a coffee shop, and a waiting room for transcontinental stages, all accessible to the hotel and to the street. The mezzanine included a beauty parlor, a ladies’ waiting room and a ladies’ retiring room. “The most modern elevators have been installed, each with safety devices and self-leveling mechanisms which stops the car in perfect line with the floors at each stop” (New Temple Square Hotel).

The opening on January 4, 1930 was huge event with multiple pages of advertising in all local newspapers from the many businesses involved in the project. Photographs taken soon after the opening show semi-luxurious public rooms with the lobby “virtually awash in tall planted palms” (Goodman).

The relationship between Ashton & Evans and The Temple Square Hotel continued for many years.
***1940 (Ashton & Evans): Alterations to the Coffee Shop, Dining Room, and Kitchen ($40,000)
***1941 – 1946 (Ashton & Evans; Ashton, Evans & Brazier): A series of interior alterations and additions many designed by Ruben Brasz. Brasz stated the design was a mix of Gothic and Italian Renaissance with “new colors of choral blue, gold, red, and orange on the beams and arches” (quoted in Goodman).
—-Main floor alterations (1941)
—-Front door and coffee shop (1943)
—-Laundry, clerk’s desk, marble floor, employee powder room (1944)
—-Bakery and Flower Shop (1946)
***1951 – 1957 (Ashton, Evans & Brazier)
—-Dining room major upgrade (1951)
—-Coffee shop remodel (1957)
The firm continued work with the Temple Square hotel after 1963 (the end of my time scope)
***1968 (Ashton, Brazier & Montmorency)
—-Large renovation rebranded the site as the Temple Square Motor Hotel. The marquee was removed and the façade was replaced with ‘store style’ windows. It was around this time that original 190 rooms were reduced to 90.

The building was still standing in 1990 when LDS Church President Hinkley announced another rebranding as the Inn at Temple Square with a European flair. Though, at that time, he noted that a different use may be in order in 20 or 30 years. In 2006 (only 16 years later), the Inn at Temple Square was demolished as part of the commercial City Creek Center plan.