Walking tour features noted Provo houses

PROVO — When Claudia and Richard Bushman bought their summer home at 90 N. 400 East in 1999, they continued a family legacy that was interrupted for only a brief period during its 118 years of existence.

Retired professors from Columbia University, they consider themselves caretakers of a family shrine. Pictures of their ancestors adorn the historic dark blue living room walls. Many of them lived there.

Both are historians. (Richard Bushman authored "Rough Stone Rolling," the biography of the LDS Prophet Joseph Smith.)

A few blocks away, another historic home built in the Craftsman style in 1912 has owners who also take note of its history and work to preserve the architecture that was so popular nationwide during the first quarter of the 20th century. Larry and Janet Peer bought the home 12 years ago from friends Stewart and Benita Hughes.

"The home has never had a 'For Sale' sign in front of it," said Larry Peer.

The home has passed from owner to owner by word-of-mouth.

"We're the ninth or 10th owner," he said.

Both homes are featured in Provo's historic walking tour, which runs through July 4. This year homes in the Joaquin and Maeser neighborhoods are featured.

Originally built as an adobe block home in 1882 by Giles Bliss Holden, Richard Bushman's great-great-grandfather, it was the farmhouse that stood guard over 40 acres of farmland, now the Joaquin neighborhood. Originally it had no bedrooms, but a bedroom wing of glazed brick was added "sometime along the way," Claudia Bushman said. That gave it two bedrooms.

The Bushmans added onto the back in 2004 and refurbished the aged home, including Brazilian hardwood floors and an updated kitchen.

Early in its history, Holden's daughter, Ruia Angelina, inherited the home, and she and her husband, Martin Isaac Bushman, began selling off pieces of the farm. During the Depression they lost the home, but in 1949 Robert Bushman, a longtime Provo pharmacist and Richard Bushman's uncle, bought the home, returning it to family hands. Richard and Claudia Bushman acquired it from Robert Bushman's widow.

In the cellar they found two original paintings by Robert Bushman of a modern pharmacist painted in 1954 and another of the old apothecary, the forerunner of pharmacy. Both now hang in their study.

"It's just a dollhouse, but it's perfect for us," Claudia Bushman said of the home. "It's bigger than our apartment in New York."