J.M. Flake Home

The James Madison Flake Home, known as “The Big House,” was built in 1895–1896 on Stinson and Hunt Streets. James Madison Flake was the eldest son of William Jordan Flake, the co-founder of Snowflake. After serving a mission for the LDS Church in England, James returned inspired by the grand architecture he had seen abroad.

He hired English carpenter Ralph Ramsay and George A. Gardner to construct a three-story, approximately 6,000-square-foot home in the Victorian Second Empire style, built from locally made and fired bricks. The home contained 16 rooms. Ramsay, who notably also carved the Eagle Gate in Salt Lake City, adorned the third-story gable with a carved life-sized horse’s head and a large horseshoe.

James Madison Flake had nine children with his first wife and fifteen with his second, filling the home’s many rooms. The home is brimming with hundreds of objects, books, and Flake family memorabilia. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 14, 1971, making it one of the earliest Snowflake properties to receive that distinction.