Like many other lovely historic buildings that used to line the tree shaded sidewalks of Provo’s University Ave., Amanda Knight Hall was a standout gem.

But in 2018, Brigham Young University, the owners of the building, had all but sharpened the wrecking ball guillotine for the lady.

Thanks to Mountain Classic Real Estate Inc., the well-known building just off the BYU campus, Amanda Knight Hall was saved and restored to its former glory.

The hall is a hybrid of English Tudor Revival and Jacobethan Revival styles of architecture and is of extreme interest to preservationists and historians.

At the time of the building’s purchase in 2019, David Phipps, CEO of Mountain Classic Real Estate Inc. said, “MCRE focuses on high design developments in the Intermountain West, and our position as the largest renovator of historic buildings in the state stems from the incredible architecture, construction, and design that was put into these properties in the early and mid-1900s. We are just very grateful to be able to be involved in bringing the soul back into many of these incredible buildings.”

Mountain Classic Real Estate is managed by brothers Chris and David Phipps. When they were considering purchasing the building, the brothers learned that their grandmother, Patricia (Pat) Leone Taylor, was an early resident of Amanda Knight Hall. That family connection was enough to seal the deal.

The Amanda Knight Hall, at 800 N. University Ave. was built in 1939 as a women’s dormitory for BYU. It later housed the Language Training Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before becoming an overflow space.

It had been listed on the Provo Landmarks Commission local historical register without the university’s approval and was removed from it in 2002. Mountain Classic is hoping to have it placed back on the registry in the next few months.

The building was originally going to be demolished with a replica built in its place, but BYU instead placed it on the market in an attempt to find a buyer who was interested in working with the Provo City Landmarks Commission to repurpose and preserve the building.

The decision to demolish was met by anger from neighbors and Preservation Utah, which argued that a replica would miss the building’s layers of memories and history.

A public open house Thursday proved that the building’s layers were not only kept intact, but polished to a new glow.

The Phipps are hoping that within the next six months, the restored Amanda Knight Hall will end up on the National Register of Historic Places as well as the local registry.

Estimates provided at the beginning of the process showed that a renovation preserving the building’s exterior facade, and allowing the interior to be functional, would cost about $10 million.

Who is Amanda Knight

The dormitory was named after Amanda Knight, a philanthropist and monetary friend of BYU until her death. She had a keen desire to see her children, and others, have the opportunity to earn a higher education.

She was born Amanda Melvina McEwan in 1851 in Salt Lake City, the daughter of John Henry McEwan and Amanda Melvina Higbee. She married Jesse Knight in 1868 at age 17. The couple settled on a farm in Payson to raise their six children.

“She made butter and cheese for market and cooked for her family. Her courage was strong as she tenderly cared for the family of growing children, although doctors, neighbors and relatives were far away,” wrote a nephew of the Knights in his journal.

Jesse Knight became a wealthy mining magnate, building beautiful homes for family members in the downtown Provo area. His mining offices were located at 1 E. Center Street in Provo, now occasionally referred to as the clock tower building. Amanda demanded the family move to Provo where the children could receive a good education.

“As we continue to celebrate the official reopening of Amanda Knight Hall in Provo, we wanted to spotlight the importance of women in this story,” said representatives from Preservation Utah. “Too often in history and preservation, it is only the men that are remembered, while the women who supported and contributed are all too easily left out.”

Preservation Utah shares this story of Amanda Knight’s tenacity. “Amanda, from accounts, seems to have been feisty. She and her husband enjoyed teasing and bantering with each other. On one occasion, she told Jesse that since he was over 60 he wasn’t spry anymore. He, in turn, took it as a challenge. The two agreed to a footrace. Two weeks of training and it would happen at night (what would the neighbors think of one of the city’s most dignified couples running on the street). The winner would pay the other $1000. In the end, Jesse won, but Jesse was surprised to find that the check for $1000 came from their joint account instead of Amanda’s!”

Built as a women’s dormitory in the late 1938, Amanda Knight Hall was the first and only institutional housing prior to World War II for female students at BYU. It also was one of only a few buildings named after a woman.

“We’ve been delighted to hear from past residents or family members of the women who spent significant years of their life in Amanda Knight Hall. We found it incredibly fitting that the owners of Mountain Classic Real Estate, who bought and rehabilitated the space, own grandmother lived as an Amanda Knight Hall resident when she was a student at BYU,” a statement from Preservation Utah said.

Both Jesse and Amanda Knight were considered generous benefactors to the university and Jesse Knight was dubbed the, “patron saint of BYU.” Jesse Knight died in 1921 and Amanda died 11 years later in 1932.

“By the time of her death in 1932 in Provo, Amanda and Jesse Knight had contributed much of their wealth to Brigham Young University and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” BYU’s student newspaper, the Daily Universe, reported in March 2000.

They also noted that, “Female residents of the building, with its three floors and 43 rooms, were allowed to work in the kitchen and the laundry and do janitorial work for credit toward room and board.”

As part of the historic nature of the building, the Phipps are continuing to gather stories from people who may have lived in the dorms as students or as Language Training Missionaries.

Female students are again being housed at Amanda Knight, a nod to its unforgettable legacy.

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