Buying the 1899 Brick Home — Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
When the house next door — a 1899 brick building — went up for sale and out-of-state investors were likely to demolish it for duplexes, Paige and her husband bought it. 'If we want to preserve old Lehi, we have to put our money where our mouth is.' Weekends refinishing floors and repointing brick is the price of that commitment.
Key Lessons
- • Talk about preservation is cheap; purchasing the building is the real act
- • Downtown Lehi's walkability and historic character are worth protecting as intentional choices
Community Connections
Stories, people, and ideas that connect across the archive — ranked by shared themes, guests, places, and topics.
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Related People
(4)Paige Albrecht
Lehi City Council Member, Attorney, Community Advocate
Lara Bangerter
Manager, Lehi Historical Society & Archives
Phil Hanks
Grandson of Ephraim Hanks · Mission President (Samoa) · Temple President (Samoa) · Church Education System Leader · Stake President · Senior Missionary (Ukraine, Freiburg) · Lehi Resident
Andy Hadfield
Head Football Coach, Lehi High School · Business Owner · Lifelong Lehi Resident
Related Stories
(4)Buying the 1899 Brick Home — Preserving Old Lehi with Personal Sacrifice
Paige Albrecht
Baby Land — A Place of Refuge Most People Don't Know About
Paige Albrecht
A Canceled Softball League and the Birth of a Public Servant
Paige Albrecht
Trees Planted for People They'd Never Meet — Wines Park and Generational Sacrifice
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Related Quotes
(4)"I really wanted my kids to have a hometown."
— Paige Albrecht
"If you want to control what happens on a piece of property, the very best way is to own it yourself."
— Paige Albrecht
"Every life should be documented."
— Lara Bangerter
"For every negative, there's a positive."
— Paige Albrecht
Related Themes
(4)Historic Preservation
The effort to keep Lehi's brick homes, historic buildings, walkable downtown, and generational landmarks alive — sometimes through personal financial sacrifice, sometimes through a well-placed brick in a new wall.
Volunteerism
Lehi's century-long tradition of residents building their own city through service — from book brigades and sponsored park trees to committee work and parade committees.
Family Legacy
The stories of families who planted roots in Lehi across generations — the ones who built the traditions, the parks, the businesses, and the sense of belonging that others now enjoy.
Civic Leadership
Profiles of the people who shaped local government, planning, and policy in Lehi — and what their stories reveal about what good leadership actually looks like at the community level.
More from Paige Albrecht
Paige Albrecht
Baby Land — A Place of Refuge Most People Don't Know About
Asked what she was most proud of in ten years of public service, Paige bypassed the fire stations and police building. She talked about Baby Land — a specially designated section of the Lehi Cemetery for infants, with a beautiful statue. Her nephew and his wife lost their baby and found it there. 'That's when you know you live in a community that cares — even when nobody's watching.'
Paige Albrecht
Trees at Wines Park — Planted for People They'd Never Meet
Reading old issues of the Lehi Free Press, Paige discovered that a hundred years ago, families could sponsor a tree at Wines Park for a dollar or two. Not Christmas trees — the actual trees now standing in the park. Families who didn't have much gave what they could, knowing the trees would outlast them. Many of their descendants still live in Lehi.
Paige Albrecht
A Canceled Softball League and the Birth of a Public Servant
Paige bought her husband a softball team for Christmas — wrote a poem and gave him his own roster. For a few years it was wonderful. Then the league was canceled. She researched, went to city council, stood at the podium, and left feeling defeated. But she stayed for the whole meeting. And the next. For eight years, before holding any office, she attended city council and Planning Commission meetings every week — simply because the process fascinated her.
Related Stories
Charlene Freestone
The Natural Parenting Boutique on Lehi Main Street
Charlene opened a natural parenting boutique — Boot Baby Boutique — in the old Lehi Hotel near the train tracks on Lehi Main Street. The shop sold cloth diapers and baby carriers, but its heart was parent education and community space. She rented from a midwife in a building that also housed a gem shop and wedding dress rentals. The business later moved up to Sandy but represented a season where business and belonging overlapped.
Charlene Freestone
COVID Ends One Chapter and Opens Another
On the day of the Utah earthquake in 2020, Charlene realized parents were not going to bring small children into stores the same way anymore. She folded her boutique quickly, sold her share to co-owners, and stepped away from both retail and nonprofit worlds. She then worked at her children's school as a teacher's aide during COVID, witnessing how everyone banded together to keep things going.
Charlene Freestone
I'm Back, But This Time I'm Helping
Charlene's son was born with needs requiring surgeries. A nurse with child passenger safety training helped her family during the car seat oxygen test. Exactly 12 years later, Charlene began working with Intermountain at Utah Valley Hospital — on the exact anniversary of her son's discharge. Looking at her badge, she thought: 'I'm back, but this time I'm helping people here.'