One of the most frequent questions we are asked is "What is the Anton Boxrud named after?" Anton Boxrud was a Scandinavian man who emigrated to the United States. He met his wife, Minnie, in Pennsylvania and they moved to Utah to open a man's shirt and ladies dress good store here in Salt Lake City. They had one daughter named Helen. Mr. Boxrud built this beautiful house in the suburbs for his family in 1901. He employed Walter Ware, one of the most noted architects of the time, to build the home for him. Mr. Ware built several of the large mansions on South Temple Street and the Presbyterian Church found on South Temple as well. They lived here till the late 1940's. Mr. & Mrs. Boxrud died naturally while still owners of the house. Helen, whose room was Suite #3 (the vanity in there was hers) did not want the home. So the mini-mansion was sold to a German lady who ran it as a boarding house for men only.

The house was changed quite a bit. The front porch was removed, all the floors were covered with red felt carpet squares and all the woodwork was either painted over with white enamel or taken out of the house.

The gorgeous stained glass windows and beveled glass windows that are native to the house, were also taken out. But, this German lady was very frugal. She did not sell those treasures like most folks did at that time, she stored them in the basement or the attic where Margaret and Ray Fuller from Maine found them in the early 1980's. Margaret and Ray bought this home to restore when they found out it was set to be torn down for space to build a retirement home that is now located on 100 South. Margaret and Ray found the original plans that Walter Ware made and they are hanging in the front formal living room. From those plans, and pictures they found in the library, they put the pillared porch back on the front, replaced all the windows, found the pocket doors inside the walls, stripped the white paint from the woodwork and took all the lovely red carpet out to reveal the natural wood floor. (Margaret has told me that she will personally haunt the person who ever repaints the woodwork!!)