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Owner hopes to preserve Old Rock
Church, Providence Inn as non-profit example of small-town
West
By Maddie Wilson
April 19, 2007 | From religious services to social
activities and Star Wars wedding receptions,
the Old Rock Church and Providence Inn serve as the
historical heart of Providence, according to owner Karl
Sethaler.
Owner since 1993, Sethaler said he hopes the church
and inn will remain the center of Providence and provide
the feeling of the "small-town American West" long after
he's gone.
"My effort personally is to preserve this building
and Providence as a heritage," Sethaler said.
To do this, Sethaler said he hopes to one day make
the church and inn, which are connected as one building,
a non-profit organization. But, he said, it would not
be easy or cheap, and would require a lot of legal work.
However, he said making it a non-profit organization
would enable it to receive donations and tax advantages.
Jez Vanderlouw, a staff member, said he likes working
at the Providence Inn, and laughed as he remembered
a woman having her second marriage in the Old Rock Church.
He said the woman's son had worked with George Lucas
on a Star Wars movie, doing makeup and costumes,
and actually came up with the look for the Darth Maul
character. Because of that, he said, everyone standing
in the wedding line was a different character from the
movie.
Apart from receptions and other social activities,
the inn offers 17 rooms with themes ranging from "Victorian"
to "Mountain Stream" to "Monet's Garden," and prices
ranging from $69 to $199 per night. Each room has a
two-person jetted tub, TV/VCR, dial-up access, free
high-speed wireless access and a hot gourmet breakfast,
made-to-order from the menu.
Vanderlouw said the most popular room is the "New
Orleans" room, although he prefers the Victorian.
He said customers come from all around the world,
and August is the busiest time of the year.
Sethaler said the Providence Inn and Old Rock Church
are special because they provide a heritage.
"It's a heritage of Providence, it's of Cache Valley,
it's of Utah, it's of the American West."
It's also on the National Historical Register, Vanderlouw
said, which means that there are regulations set that
require certain parts of the building to never be changed.
And preserving the building is what Sethaler said
he hopes to do. He said there are two factors to Providence:
"The Old Rock Church is one, and then there's everything
else."
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