Buying the 1899 Brick Home — Preserving Old Lehi with Personal Sacrifice

Paige and her husband had moved to downtown Lehi partly because it still felt like old Lehi — brick buildings, walkable streets, historical character increasingly rare in Utah County. Two weeks before her Roots & Branches interview, the house next door went up for sale. A 1899 old brick building on the corner — the Historical Society was already doing research on its history. When they learned out-of-state investors wanted to buy it and likely demolish it for duplexes, Paige and her husband decided it was time to put their money where their mouth was. They bought it. Weekends repointing brick and refinishing floors. Mystery jars in the crawl space they haven't yet opened. But as Paige put it: 'If we want to preserve old Lehi, we have to own it ourselves.' It's preservation not as a political position but as a personal financial commitment — the kind that comes with costs and crawl spaces.