Tempe Historic Property Survey

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints became active in Tempe in the early 1880s, but the first Mormon church was not begun until 1928. The building was constructed of adobe bricks and plastered with cement stucco. Most of the construction was undertaken by church members and friends, and was substantially completed by late 1929. In the 1950s, remodeling and major additions, including a bell tower, significantly altered the original configuration of the church. The building was demolished in 1996.

The LDS Church was an irregularly-shaped two-story building in Spanish Colonial Revival style. The building featured stuccoed walls, red tile roofs, and a central bell tower rising from the ground to project above the roof. Decorative tiles framed the double-door main entry in the base of the tower. Building roofs were pitched and the tower roof was hipped. A veranda covered with a tiled shed roof extended from the tower to the building's north wing. The east end of the front façade featured three two-story round arches. The round arch was repeated in the front façade of the upper tower, and had an iron-railed balcony. The original portion of the building (the west end) was adobe.

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