Bunnell Home

Address: UVSC Campus
Stephen Ithamer and Mary Elizabeth Gammon Bunnell, Jr. Built this home in 1892, as they watched Indians bury their dead on the western slopes of this property.

The Bunnell Pioneer Home is one of less than thirty remaining in Orem from the Settlement/Farming period of 1877 to 1919. It is one of only six houses built prior to 1892 which retains most of its historic integrity. Of these six, only three have unaltered exteriors and reflect the vernacular styles common to that period.

Bunnell is said to have introduced Red Delicious apples to this area. He constructed a huge packing shed, barn, chicken coop, pig pen, root cellar, animal sheds, and a race track for training his thorough bred race horses on this site.

Following the death of Stephen Ithamer Bunnell, Jr. in 1914, his son, Thomas Joel Bunnell, acquired the property and moved into the Bunnell Home, where he and his wife, Zelda Holdaway, reared their eight children during the next 25 years. Sold by the Bunnells in 1939, it passed through several hands until 1966, when Wilson Sorenson, President of Utah Technical College, acquired it for the present-day UVSC campus.

In 1976 Carrol Ward Reid, Dean of Student Services, recognized the historic value of the home and led a three-year restoration project by faculty and students, with federal training funds. They restored original windows and door moldings, installed new cedar shingles, and repaired chimneys. Interior construction included a spiral staircase, skylights, a restroom, and kitchen for the hotel/restaurant management school.

Plans call for use of the home by the Lifelong Learning Center, Pride in Our Pioneer Heritage classes and the Alumni Association of UVSC.

The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

(Orem Historic Homes and Sites of Interest.  Orem, UT: Historic Preservation Advisory Commission, 2009.) Used with permission.