973 Diestel Road
January 2013
What a wonderful project! Our geographical home certainly deserves it’s own home on the Internet. I’m excited to see it.
Here are some things I’ve got so far:
I grew up in the house on 907 Diestel Road, so I know a little about its lineage. My father, former Salt Lake Tribune publisher Jerry O’Brien, bought the house from Bob Ottum in the mid 1960s. Bob was moving to New York City to become a journalist for Sports Illustrated.
This is not confirmed, but I think the Ottums bought the house from the Strattons. Their daughter, Janie, was a professional tennis player who competed at Wimbledon. She’s still a tennis pro in California. In the mid-1980s, my brother John moved into the house. Then the Stokers lived there. Now the Walkers live there.
A few doors down on Diestel Road, KSL executive Hal Collipriest lived with his family. His daughter, Mary Jane, has made a name for herself in Washington, D.C., as an amazing staffer on Capitol Hill -- first for Jake Garn, then as chief of staff for Bob Bennett and currently for Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.
Of course, most of us remember Karl Lagerberg, who lived at 971 Diestel Road. He often strolled up and down Diestel Road and through the gully. He was a patriarch for the LDS Church, and the subject of stories in both The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News. Here’s an online version of the News story on him. I’ll keep looking for a link to the Trib’s story:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19690104&id=KtdSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=038DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5797,961473
Karl, a lifelong vegetarian, was very colorful. He would stand in his yard, with his back to the wind and chant or moan so as to let the wind carry away negative energy.
I bought the house at 973 Diestel in 1993 from the children of Mina Finlayson, the original owner of the house built in 1938. Someone told me (the Campbells perhaps) that it was Mina who orchestrated the planting of the chestnut trees on the block. But by mistake, we got horse chestnut trees instead of a variety with edible chestnuts. Oh well. Mina’s husband was an architect who designed their home. It’s art deco, which is quite rare for anything other than a commercial building. It’s included in a book of historic Utah architecture by Tom Carter. It was a duplex, but we converted it into a single-family dwelling in the mid-1990s.
I’ll keep working on my collection of Diestel memorabilia.
Thanks so much for this. It’ll be a great neighborhood resource!
Sincerely,
Joan, Tom and Donna at 973 Diestel
What a wonderful project! Our geographical home certainly deserves it’s own home on the Internet. I’m excited to see it.
Here are some things I’ve got so far:
I grew up in the house on 907 Diestel Road, so I know a little about its lineage. My father, former Salt Lake Tribune publisher Jerry O’Brien, bought the house from Bob Ottum in the mid 1960s. Bob was moving to New York City to become a journalist for Sports Illustrated.
This is not confirmed, but I think the Ottums bought the house from the Strattons. Their daughter, Janie, was a professional tennis player who competed at Wimbledon. She’s still a tennis pro in California. In the mid-1980s, my brother John moved into the house. Then the Stokers lived there. Now the Walkers live there.
A few doors down on Diestel Road, KSL executive Hal Collipriest lived with his family. His daughter, Mary Jane, has made a name for herself in Washington, D.C., as an amazing staffer on Capitol Hill -- first for Jake Garn, then as chief of staff for Bob Bennett and currently for Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.
Of course, most of us remember Karl Lagerberg, who lived at 971 Diestel Road. He often strolled up and down Diestel Road and through the gully. He was a patriarch for the LDS Church, and the subject of stories in both The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News. Here’s an online version of the News story on him. I’ll keep looking for a link to the Trib’s story:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19690104&id=KtdSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=038DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5797,961473
Karl, a lifelong vegetarian, was very colorful. He would stand in his yard, with his back to the wind and chant or moan so as to let the wind carry away negative energy.
I bought the house at 973 Diestel in 1993 from the children of Mina Finlayson, the original owner of the house built in 1938. Someone told me (the Campbells perhaps) that it was Mina who orchestrated the planting of the chestnut trees on the block. But by mistake, we got horse chestnut trees instead of a variety with edible chestnuts. Oh well. Mina’s husband was an architect who designed their home. It’s art deco, which is quite rare for anything other than a commercial building. It’s included in a book of historic Utah architecture by Tom Carter. It was a duplex, but we converted it into a single-family dwelling in the mid-1990s.
I’ll keep working on my collection of Diestel memorabilia.
Thanks so much for this. It’ll be a great neighborhood resource!
Sincerely,
Joan, Tom and Donna at 973 Diestel