Warren Jeffs’ Utah home converted into sober living house
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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A sprawling 44-bedroom house surrounded by towering brick walls that was the home base for polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs has been converted into a sober living center by Evangelical missionaries. It’s the latest sign of his group’s dwindling control of the small community on the Utah-Arizona border.
Jeffs hasn’t lived in the three-story home known as the “Big House” for years because he’s serving a life sentence in Texas for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered brides. In his absence, his religious group known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, has been weakened amid government crackdowns and an exodus of members who were kicked out or decided to leave.
The 29,000-square-foot house that was built around 2000 has been modernized, but remnants of Jeffs’ legacy remain.
A secret room under the home’s main entrance can only be accessed through a linen closet by pulling a hidden latch that resembles a light switch that allows a person to slide open the shelving and push open a door, said Glyn and Jena Jones, who run the sober living center. The safe that Jeffs used to store religious records remains inside.
On the outside of the chimney, letters run vertically that read, “Pray and obey.” Inside the house, there is still wiring that was likely used for surveillance cameras and to tap into phones throughout the house, the Joneses said.
The home is among about 150 that have been redistributed to former sect members in recent years after a church-run trust was seized by the Utah state government. A couple of homes have been converted into bed and breakfasts.
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