FEATURE – The place got its name from a mistake — one made more than 145 years ago. 

In the mid 1870s, Brigham Young, second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ordered white paint for the St. George Temple. However, someone must have screwed up the order because when the paint was delivered, it was green, not white. Unable to return it, Young offered the paint to the settlers to use, leading to many green gates and fences lining many properties in the fledgling settlement in the southern Utah desert. The only original gate dating from that time period stands on the east side of the Orson Pratt home in what is now known as Green Gate Village.

It is not by chance that so many historical buildings are gathered in one place. A collection of restored homes, some original to the site and some relocated, Green Gate Village is the masterpiece left by a dedicated couple with a vision, whose name just so happened to be Greene. Dr. Mark H. Greene, a successful Salt Lake City surgeon, and his wife, Barbara, relocated to St. George later in life and made historical preservation their vision. 

They first bought the Orson Pratt-Richard Bentley House in 1981 to restore it as a family retreat. A year later, they bought Joseph Bentley house as well as Thomas Judd’s Store and granary from Thomas Judd, Jr. to prevent them from demolition. These buildings and the 1917 Joseph Judd home at the southwest corner of Green Gate Village are the buildings original to the site. The others were moved to the site. The Greenes turned the whole complex into a Bed and Breakfast Inn, with unique, historical accommodations.

Overall, the Greenes’ vision and determination saved many of these historic structures from the wrecking ball. Instead, they live on to show current and future generations a peak into the lives of earlier pioneers.

“Mark and Barbara had remarkable vision and ability to restore the past,” Barbara Greene’s obituary reads. “Green Gate Village in St. George, Utah . . . will forever be their restoration monument. Perhaps it was their way of expressing the eternal round in all of us.”

Green Gate Village ceased operations as a Bed and Breakfast Inn in 2016. At that time, the new owners converted it into the retail and office space it is today.

The following are brief historical sketches about each building that makes up Green Gate Village:

Orson Pratt House (circa 1862)

Brother of Parley P. Pratt, who led an expedition to explore Southern Utah in the winter of 1849-50, Orson converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after his brother. Ordained an apostle at the tender age of 23, Orson Pratt was excommunicated from the church seven years later, in 1842, after being deceived by an apostate. He was rebaptized and restored to the apostleship and became a stalwart leader when the Saints headed west, being a member of the first company to reach the Salt Lake Valley. He served in the Utah territorial legislature and undertook the enormous task of dividing both the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants into chapters and verses as well as supplying the extensive cross references a Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center bio on him notes. Pratt helped direct the Cotton Mission, the Church’s attempt to establish Cotton production in Utah’s southwest corner.

Pratt’s St. George home was the first permanent home in St. George, and is the last remaining structure in the state of Utah with a connection to Pratt. The two-story home was constructed on a black lava rock foundation, just like the St. George Temple, which began construction approximately nine years after the home’s completion. The house’s walls are 18 inches thick, fashioned from locally produced adobe of sand and gravel laboriously mixed by hand. The Pratt family lived on the second story, while the first story was a dry goods store and St. George’s first post office, a book about St. George landmarks and historic sites published by the St. George Community Development Department explained.

The Pratt family lived in the home approximately two years, then left when Pratt was called on a mission to Austria. Before they left, the Pratts traded homes with Richard Bentley and his family, who came to settle from Salt Lake City. The Bentley family stayed in the home for quite some time. They continued to operate a mercantile out of the first floor room on the west side and converted the rest of the main floor to living quarters. After Richard died, the home was passed into the hands of his son, William Oscar Bentley. When the Bentley family moved to a more modern house just around the corner in the 1920s, the house was divided and became apartment rentals, then “(suffered) through several unsightly ‘modern’ changes and additions,” an old pamphlet about Green Gate Village explained. 

In 1981, the Greene family purchased the home, which was in a state of complete decay and marked for demolition. Once on the brink of being razed, it became the centerpiece of Green Gate Village.

The Pratt Home now houses Scout + Cloth (which sells up-and-coming fashions), Violin Gallery, and The Advocates law offices.

Green Hedge Manor (George E. Miles/Thomas Judd Home)

Originally built by Thomas Judd in 1872 at 238 South 200 East, the home was built in the “Dixie Dormer” style, which was unique to Southern Utah. Fashioned of lava rock, adobe and a stucco exterior, the home features a large porch and decorative scrollwork. The home was located in the midst of mulberry trees and behind an untrimmed tamarack hedge, with grapevines and rose bushes bordering the sidewalks. After building his new store, Judd built a new family home on the corner of Tabernacle and 100 West. Judd sold the home to the George Q. Cannon family, who then sold it to George E. Miles, who lived there almost 70 years, until his death in 1970 at 104 years old. 

Born in England in 1866, Miles moved to Utah with his family in 1878. He attended St. George Stake Academy and passed the teacher’s examination, becoming a teacher for a time before taking up farming. He was active in the community, serving as St. George City Clerk for 18 years and as Justice of the Peace for three terms. He was Patriarch of the St. George Stake for 30 years. 

In 1986, the home was slated for demolition with a developer planning a condo complex on the property. The community banded together with enough signatures to save it from destruction. The house was moved to an empty lot, but was severely damaged in the process. Portions of a green gate and fence were discovered on the home’s property, hidden behind massive hedges. The disassembled pieces of the home sat in piles until it was restored in 1991. 

Green Hedge Manor, and the nearby Tolley Cabin, which was moved to Green Gate Village from Nephi, is now home to the offices of Cedar Pointe Homes.

Joseph Bentley House 

When he proposed to Mary Ann Mansfield, William Oscar Bentley promised to build her a new Victorian style home near the Tabernacle. Construction started on the house in 1876, and Mary Ann wrote in her diary that she enjoyed watching the construction and dreamed of the day she could move into the home with spacious rooms and ornate woodwork. It wasn’t to be, however. Just two weeks before the wedding, her husband sold the home to his brother, Joseph, without consulting anyone, the St. George Community Development book noted.

“I almost called the wedding off, but decided I was getting married ‘for better or worse’ and needed to learn that lesson right from the start,” Mary Ann recorded in her diary.

It is believed that Joseph Bentley’s home was a regular venue for social events in early St. George and included elegant Christmas decorations. In 1908, Joseph Bentley sold the home to Thomas Judd, who built the present Judd’s Store in front of the house, which was then used as office and storage space. When Thomas’s son Joseph Judd took over store operations, he boarded up the structure and it remained unoccupied for over 50 years. St. George City wanted to condemn the house and turn it into a parking lot, but thankfully the Greenes purchased it in 1982 and began the restoration process in which hand-painted doors and faux marble fireplaces were discovered,  During the Green Gate Village’s time as an Inn, the house served as the front desk, a restaurant and a Victorian-style guest suite.

Richard A. and Orpha Morris House

 Built in 1879 on the corner of Main Street and 200 North, across the street from the St. George Opera House. In the early 1980s, it was slated for demolition to make way for a new post office, the Greenes rescued it and moved it to Green Gate Village.

To move it, contractors placed steel beams underneath its foundation, wrapped cables around the home to secure it and then loaded it onto a truck bed. The city had to disconnect some power lines to allow for the home’s slow move to its new address. 

“It successfully made the turn from Main Street onto Tabernacle and was lined up perfectly in front of its new foundation,” a book about St. George landmarks and historic sites published by the St. George Community Development book explained. “However, the task of moving the truck up and over the curb resulted in a broken axle, and the jarring snapped the cables. Nearly a century of memories fell into the courtyard in a thunderous crash.”

After this debacle, it would have been easier to carry the rubble to the local landfill, but the Greenes remained undaunted, having already invested a significant amount of time and money towards the project. With the help of the trucking company’s insurance, the Greenes had the house rebuilt using as much of the original material as possible.

The Morris Home is now home to Field Study, which sells Southwest themed stationary, gifts, furniture and decor.

Thomas Judd’s Carriage House and Granary

The long, rectangular adobe brick building is divided into two sections: the Carriage House and the Granary. The Carriage House stored the Judd family’s various forms of transportation. Originally, the only entrance were large double doors that faced the alley, but during restoration, crews framed a proper entrance and windows into the structure’s 18-inch walls, the St. George Community Development Department book noted.

The Judd’s used the granary as a storehouse for Judd’s Store.

“Bags of grain, storage bins, drop shoots and a loading dock have been replaced by lace curtains and flowered wallpaper,” the St. George Community Development Department book explained. “When the granary was cleaned out of almost a century of accumulated odds and ends, lots of treasures were found, among them were 50 pairs of shoes (circa 1900). Many of the items found in the clean-up are on display in Judd’s Store.”

The Carriage House is now home to Gem Studio, where patrons can learn to silversmith rings and the Granary is home to Chic Gents, which fashions tailored suits.

The Christmas Cottage

A pioneer home riginally located behind Andelin’s Gable House Restaurant at 206 E. St. George Boulevard, the house received its moniker from restauranter Mike Andelin selling holiday decorations in the home from October to February. When the Gable House was sold, the cottage was moved brick by brick and reassembled in its current location at Green Gate Village. It is now home to The Barbers of Green Gate.

Joseph Judd Home

The most modern of the structures at Green Gate Village, the structure is built in the Prairie School Bungalow style, with external walls of yellow brick. At the time of its construction in 1917, brick was considered a luxury. The interior is Arts and Crafts style with tapered columns and built-in cabinets with glass doors restored to their original luster, the St. George Community Development Department book explained.

Thomas Judd, Sr., built the home, but his son, Joseph, raised his family there. It remained in the family until 1974. Known as the Judd Bungalow, the Greenes purchased it in the 1980s for inclusion in Green Gate Village.

Visiting Green Gate Village

Green Gate Village is located at 76 West Tabernacle Street, next to Thomas Judd’s Store and across the street from the old Woodward School.

Photo Gallery

About the series “Days”

“Days” is a series of stories about people and places, industry and history in and surrounding the region of southwestern Utah.

“I write stories to help residents of southwestern Utah enjoy the region’s history as much as its scenery,” St. George News contributor Reuben Wadsworth said.

To keep up on Wadsworth’s adventures, “like” his author Facebook page.

Wadsworth has also released a book compilation of many of the historical features written about Washington County as well as a second volume containing stories about other places in Southern Utah, Northern Arizona and Southern Nevada.

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