The landmark Bountiful
The hilltop landmark on the Bountiful bench
The Bountiful Temple, the white granite landmark on the bench
On nine acres of the upper east bench, at 640 South Bountiful Boulevard, stands 104,000 square feet of building faced in Bethel white granite. It went up between a 1992 groundbreaking and a January 1995 dedication, and because of where it sits, it is the landmark most of south Davis County gives directions by. This page is about the building and the view, the granite and the dates, and where it stands on the bench.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
The Bountiful Utah Temple is the white granite building on the upper east bench at 640 South Bountiful Boulevard, and it is the landmark most of south Davis County gives directions by. It stands on nine acres several hundred feet above the valley floor, runs to 104,000 square feet, and went up between a groundbreaking in 1992 and a dedication in January 1995. You can see the exterior and the hillside setting from the public road; the grounds front the boulevard, and for anything about entering them, the institution that runs the building is the source to ask. This page is about the building and the view, the granite and the dates, and where it sits on the bench.
The building
104,000 square feet of Bethel white granite on nine acres of hillside
The Bountiful Utah Temple stands at 640 South Bountiful Boulevard, on the upper east bench above the city grid. It runs to 104,000 square feet of floor area on a nine acre site, and the exterior is finished in Bethel white granite. The finished interior runs across several levels behind that granite. It was the eighth temple built in Utah and the first in Davis County, and that white stone on a hillside is the reason so much of the valley can pick it out.
The dates are simple where it counts. Ground was broken on 2 May 1992, and the building was dedicated across a week in January 1995, from the 8th to the 14th, by Howard W. Hunter. The dedication ran to twenty eight sessions and was, at the time, the most attended there had been. Before any of that came the public open house, from 5 November to 17 December 1994, when 870,361 people walked through in six weeks. For scale, the city the building stands above counted 45,762 residents at the 2020 census, so for that winter the open house drew something close to twenty times the town.
Bethel white granite is the same pale, hard stone that reads so sharply against a dark hillside at dusk, and it is the single design choice that does the most work here. A darker building on the same nine acres would not carry across the valley the way this one does. The material, the acreage and the dimensions are the whole of what the building is, and they are what this page is about.
The temple, in numbers
104,000 sq ft
total floor area
9 acres
the site on the upper east bench
870,361
visitors to the 1994 open house
Jan 1995
dedicated across a week, the 8th to the 14th
The details
Why you can see it
It was put where the valley would see it, and that is the whole trick of the place
A nine acre site on the upper east bench sits several hundred feet above the valley floor, and a white granite building on it reads against a dark hillside from a long way off. From I-15, from most of south Davis County, and from a good share of the west facing windows in Bountiful, it is simply there on the skyline. Lit at night it is the most conspicuous built thing in this part of the county. None of that is about height; it is about where the building stands, which is a piece of landscape more than anything else.
The practical version shows up in ordinary directions. On this side of the county, the temple is the thing people point to when they describe where on the bench something is, and it is the landmark used for the Holbrook Canyon trailhead, which sits just south of it and across the road behind a brown sign. Give someone directions to that trailhead from downtown Bountiful and you will almost certainly route them past this building.
Bountiful Boulevard, the street it fronts, is the other half of the story. The boulevard runs north to south along the bench, and within about two miles of the temple it also passes the Holbrook trailhead, the turn toward the North Canyon mouth, and the city golf course at 2430 South. It is the one street in town that strings together a landmark, two canyon accesses and a course without ever dropping into the grid. If you are learning the upper bench, the temple is the pin you hang the rest of it on.
White granite on nine acres of hillside, put where the whole valley would see it, and that is most of what there is to say about why it works as a landmark.
Visiting and parking
Can you visit the grounds, and where do you park?
Here is the honest version. The grounds front Bountiful Boulevard at 640 South, and the exterior and the hillside setting are plainly visible from that public road, which is how most of the county has always experienced the building. If all you want is to see it, you already can, from the boulevard or from half the valley. For anything more, entering the grounds, touring the building, or parking on the site itself, the institution that runs the building is the source to check rather than a guide, and I would not send you up the bench on a guess about hours.
There was one stretch when the interior was open to anybody: the public open house from 5 November to 17 December 1994, before the dedication that January, which drew 870,361 people over six weeks. That was a dated, one time arrangement rather than a standing one, and it is worth knowing only as history now.
For the drive itself, the temple sits about two to three miles east and uphill of downtown Bountiful, roughly eight to twelve minutes climbing the bench, and Bountiful Boulevard takes you straight there. The other Bountiful landmark, the 1863 building downtown, is the subject of the Main Street page, and the canyon trailhead just south of the temple has its own guide on Holbrook Canyon.
Two Bountiful landmarks
The bench building and the Main Street one could not be less alike
This city keeps two architectural landmarks. One stands on the bench in white granite from the 1990s; the other stands on Main Street in adobe from the 1860s. Side by side, as buildings, they are a fair summary of what happened to Bountiful in between.
| The Bountiful Temple | The Bountiful Tabernacle | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it stands | 640 South Bountiful Boulevard, on the upper east bench above the grid | 55 South Main Street, at Main and Center, in the historic downtown |
| When it was built | Ground broken 2 May 1992, dedicated across a week in January 1995 | Begun 1857, paused during the Utah Expedition, finished 1863 |
| What it is made of | Bethel white granite, over 104,000 square feet of floor area | Adobe walls, roof timbers fastened with wooden pegs, lumber from Holbrook Canyon |
| The style | Late twentieth century, on a nine acre hillside site meant to be seen from below | Greek Revival, designed by Augustus Farnham, on a town lot in the 1847 grid |
| What you see from the street | The exterior and the hillside setting from Bountiful Boulevard | A streetscape landmark on a Main Street walk |
The Tabernacle is on the National Register of Historic Places, listed in 1976. It was built between 1857 and 1863.
Living on the bench
The streets around the temple are the built edge of Bountiful
The nine acres the temple stands on sit near the top of where Bountiful was able to build. Above and around it the streets thin out and then stop, the national forest starts, and two of the city's canyon mouths open within a couple of miles. That gives the upper bench a hard edge most Wasatch Front suburbs do not have, and it is the reason the streets up here hold views that cannot be built out from below them.
It also puts them at the top of every gradient in the city, and the gradients are measurable rather than atmospheric. Bountiful bills water at a higher rate at high elevation than at low. The bench holds snow the valley floor gauge does not record. Driveways are steeper, and retaining walls are part of what a house is. And a mapped local wildland urban interface area, adopted in December 2025, governs what new construction, major remodels and re-roofing on the mapped ground have to meet.
None of that is a warning; it is the set of facts worth having before a summer showing on a street with a temple view. The city publishes an interactive map where a specific address can be checked against the wildland layer directly, which is the right way to settle it. The mover page carries the whole set, and the priced side of a bench address, taxes, utilities and school assignment included, lives on the Bountiful city guide.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Quick answers
The temple, answered
The Bountiful Utah Temple stands at 640 South Bountiful Boulevard, on the upper east bench above the Bountiful city grid, several hundred feet higher than the valley floor. The site runs to nine acres and the grounds front the boulevard. Because of where it sits and what it is faced in, the white granite building is visible from I-15 and from a large part of south Davis County, which is why it is the landmark people give directions by on this side of the county, the Holbrook Canyon trailhead just south of it included.
The grounds front Bountiful Boulevard at 640 South, and the exterior and the hillside setting are plainly visible from the public road, which is how most of this county has always known the building. For any current arrangement to enter or tour the grounds themselves, the institution that runs the building is the place to check rather than a guide. The one time the interior was open to everyone was the six week public open house in the winter of 1994, before the building was dedicated the following January.
Bountiful Boulevard runs right past the grounds at 640 South, and that public road is where most people stop to look. If you mean to stop on the site itself rather than see the building from the boulevard, check with the institution that runs it first, since public parking for the grounds is not something I can point you to. The building was designed to be seen from below, so a good deal of the county takes it in without stopping at all.
The total floor area is 104,000 square feet on a nine acre site, and the exterior is finished in Bethel white granite. The finished interior runs across several levels behind that granite. It was the eighth temple built in Utah and the first in Davis County.
Bethel white granite on the exterior, over a floor area of 104,000 square feet. That white stone against a dark hillside is the reason the building carries so far across the valley. The contrast with the city's other landmark is sharp: the Bountiful Tabernacle downtown is built of adobe, with roof timbers pegged together and lumber that came out of Holbrook Canyon just up the bench.
Ground was broken on 2 May 1992, and the building was dedicated across a week in January 1995, from the 8th to the 14th, by Howard W. Hunter. In between came the public open house, from 5 November to 17 December 1994, which drew 870,361 people before the doors closed for the dedication.
Because of where it was put, not how tall it is. A nine acre site on the upper east bench sits several hundred feet above the valley floor, so a white granite building on it reads against a dark hillside from a long way off, the freeway and most of south Davis County included. Lit at night it is the most conspicuous built thing in this part of the county, and that is why it turns up in ordinary directions, right down to a canyon trailhead a few hundred yards south of it.
Yes. It was the eighth temple built in Utah and the first in Davis County, dedicated in January 1995. Two more have been dedicated in the county since, at Layton in June 2024 and at Syracuse in June 2025, which makes the Bountiful building the oldest of the three by about three decades and the only one that predates the county's current run of growth.
870,361, over a public open house that ran from 5 November to 17 December 1994, ahead of the dedication that January. For scale, the city the building stands above counted 45,762 residents at the 2020 census. The dedication that followed ran to twenty eight sessions and was, at the time, the most attended temple dedication there had been.
A landmark on the bench, and a bench that prices itself differently
The streets with the temple view sit at the top of every gradient in Bountiful, and the gradients are real: water metered at the high elevation rate, snow the valley floor never sees, a driveway to clear in January, retaining walls that belong on an inspection list, and ground inside the local wildland map the city adopted in December 2025. Every one is checkable against a specific address before an offer. Tell me the streets you are looking at and I will put you with a Davis County partner agent who works south Davis, and stay on the file for the financing side.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
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