Memories for sale

The inventory included banana-split bowls and baroque dining-room furniture, plastic toilet seat extenders and the mahogany bedroom set John F. Kennedy once almost slept in.

There were bargains and memories both, so when the doors opened Thursday morning on the public sale of furnishings from the now defunct Inn at Temple Square and Hotel Utah, the line stretched most of the way down the block. Within minutes, shoppers were standing in a long check-out line, trying to balance bath mats and sugar bowls and luggage racks and house plants.

In the midst of the mayhem, Kraig Adams of Salt Lake City stood anxiously by two end tables and a lamp.

"If I walk away, I lose it," said Adams, who was trying to catch the eye of his mother, across the room, who couldn't leave a stack of dishes that were too heavy to carry.

The Inn at Temple Square is slated for demolition to make way for the billion-dollar City Creek Center. The downtown project will combine retail, office and residential units in the blocks occupied by Crossroads Plaza and the ZCMI Center.

Opened in 1931 as Hotel Temple Square, the building at 71 W. South Temple had wedding-night memories for several of Thursday's bargain hunters, including Doug and Laurel Larsen of Saratoga Springs, who were married there in 1946. Now they're the happy owners of two hotel lamps. Laurel stood in the check-out line so long holding her lamp that her left hand became numb.

Doors opened at 11 a.m., but the line to get into the sale site, the abandoned Mervyn's at Crossroads, started forming about 8 a.m. At the very front of the line were Braden and Emily Atkins. Braden passed the time studying his embryology textbook, and Emily came armed with sheet music. As soon as the doors opened, they made a beeline for the pianos, and Emily sat down to play a bit of David Lanz. Then they wrote down their bid.

Most of the stuff was sold "cash and carry." The rest will be sold in a silent auction that is taking bids until 6 p.m. Nov. 11.

Auction items include the bedroom suite set that, according to Inn personnel, was purchased by the Hotel Utah for JFK's late-November visit in 1963. Although Kennedy had stayed at the Hotel Utah two months earlier, new furniture was apparently installed for a planned subsequent trip — which never happened because of the Nov. 22 assassination in Dallas. The furniture was later moved to room 701 at the Inn at Temple Square.

Bert Wonnacott's father started his career operating a freight elevator at the Hotel Utah and worked his way up to manager of the Hotel Temple Square. Wonnacott's grandfather was a doorman at the Hotel Utah. Wonnacott's wife, Chris, now works at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, the Hotel Utah's current incarnation. So, the Wonnacotts were thrilled to buy the Inn's welcome mat, which they plan to put in front of their house.

There were memories but also just frying pans and lamp shades and chairs and "amenities" — the little soaps and lotions and pre-moistened towelettes that hotel guests usually take home for free.

In fact, there were so many bargain hunters that the Salt Lake City Police Department's "accident list" for Thursday afternoon noted "several cars parked on Trax line, trains can't get through, ps (possibly) due to a large sale at Mervyn's."

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com