As LDS temples rise, home values do, too
"We'd love to, but we can't use that phraseology," said Whyte, who like 92 percent of Rexburg's 31,000 residents is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "The Federal Fair Housing Act kicks in and calls it discriminatory."
Call it the "temple effect" as towering structures like the one to be completed in Rexburg in February, or another slated to be finished in mid-2008 in Twin Falls 190 miles away, produce economic ripples.
Home prices in surrounding subdivisions escalate. Motels hawk rooms with temple views. Devout retirees relocate.
Unlike Mormon chapels where anybody can enter, temples are places where even LDS members must be in good standing with church leadership to get inside. Once there, they baptize the dead by proxy, marry for eternity and make sacred covenants with God all beneath golden spires topped with Moroni, the angel that Mormons believe delivered the golden plates that form their gospel's foundation.
"It is always a constant reminder, when you see it sitting there and the beauty of it, of what I'm supposed to be doing," said Georgia Brown, a Twin Falls resident who says even her town's non-Mormons have taken notice of the new temple. "A friend asked me, 'Did you know our Moroni is bigger than the Boise Moroni?' Even for her, it's 'our' temple."
As the 2008 presidential run of LDS member and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's piques interest in this 177-year-old American religion, the 13-million-person church has at least 13 new temples under construction or in planning around the world, including six in Latin America where it's growing quickly.
Just four are in the United States, with two in Idaho.
The Rexburg temple, to be the church's 125th worldwide, is about 57,500 square feet, rising 168 feet, 8 inches to the trumpet-blowing Moroni atop its single spire. Located near 20,000-student Brigham Young University-Idaho, a Mormon-owned school, the temple's exterior includes 637 composite concrete panels mixed with sunlight-catching quartz.
Stately leaded-glass windows are ornamented with wheat designs, a nod to the region's agricultural heritage.
Inside, the fixtures are art-deco, from the wall lamps to the stairway banisters. A blue-tiled baptismal font astride 12 oxen on the second floor is where Mormons induct dead relatives into the faith. Carpeted instructional rooms have colorful murals depicting elk and deer.
Young LDS couples will marry here in the same rooms where deceased partners are sealed together for all time. The temple culminates in the well-lighted "Celestial Room," where believers can meditate on their faith.
Recent comments
SJ Bobkins - This article was written by the Associated Press not the...
baber | Dec. 26, 2007 at 10:46 a.m.
I'm far from being touchy, thin-skinned or a Mr. Mac's suit wearing,...
SJ Bobkins | Dec. 23, 2007 at 10:49 p.m.
I think the new temples that are built should look like the slc or...
Anonymous | Dec. 23, 2007 at 3:06 p.m.
- Carlos becomes hurricane off Baja 6:54 p.m.
- Cheney-CIA counterterrorism talk 6:53 p.m.
- Peirsol breaks WR in 200 back 6:51 p.m.
- Logan canal breaks; 3 to 4 missing 6:37 p.m.
- 'Mates: Millsap deserves big payday 5:22 p.m.
- Millsap offer: $10.3M up front 4:59 p.m.
- Questions about osteoarthritis 4:43 p.m.
- 'Love advocates' plan 'kiss-in' 3:46 p.m.
- Many-splendored container garden 3:29 p.m.
- California's $26B deficit 3:25 p.m.
- Jazz brass debate Millsap match
- LDS seminary principal arrested
- 2 men cited on LDS plaza
- Jazz finances not quite so bleak
- Logan canal breaks; 3 to 4 missing
- Utahns among Texans' investors
- Reactions on Boozer speculation
- Millsap offer: $10.3M up front
- Cash for Clunkers to get rolling soon
- HBO defends U. logo use in 'Love'
- LDS seminary principal arrested
331 - Jazz brass debate Millsap match
192 - 2 men cited on LDS plaza
164 - Jazz talking Boozer trade?
141 - Bronco collecting a galaxy of recruits
141 - Blazers may offer Millsap a contract
124 - Stadium of Fire flag burning was fake
101 - Fairness of BCS debated
83 - Letters: Single-payer system best
76 - Services bids farewell to Jackson
70
Here's BYU's press release on Jonathan Tavernari's big game for the...
let Milsap go, I relize he may be one of 4 people on the team with heart, get...
To "I Smell California," who brilliantly made the following comment a few...
dollar contract and he is getting 10 million this year than he will only be...
The Jazz already have a couple of other PFs they can use: Okur is really a...
Wasn't Joseph Smith's "inspired translation" enough? Will someone please...
I had Bro Pratt as a seminary teacher only two years ago. He is the most...
We do need to see the evidence as it comes out in the Legal system. If...
We want this stuff. The media aren't making money without our permission,...
I don't want homosexuals exposing themselves in front of my children. The...
What some of you don't understand is that if GM had filed bankruptcy without...

