Polygamous leader’s home has a conversion

SALT LAKE CITY — 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 centre 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 threestorey 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.

The 29,000-square-foot house that was built in about 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, said Glyn and Jena Jones, who run the sober-living centre. 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.”

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-andbreakfasts.

Jeffs’ 65th wife, Briell Decker, was granted the right to buy the home for a discounted price of $600,000 US by a community board overseeing the redistribution. Decker, who left the FLDS six years ago, said she didn’t have enough money, so she sought someone who would help her turn a house that stood as a symbol of oppression into something that would spark hope.

That’s how she met the Joneses, a California couple who said they felt called by God three years ago to move with their teenage daughter to the community. They are affiliated with the faith-based Dream Center network out of Phoenix that has 267 centres around the world.

An arrangement allows the Dream Center to lease the house for a year with an option to buy it.

The Jones said they hope the centre helps former FLDS members transition into life outside of the secluded sect and receive life-skills help.

Polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the mainstream church abandoned the practice in 1890.