William & Mary Coleman Home

180 North Center

Tucked behind towering pine trees at 180 North Center Street stands one of Midway's distinctive Gothic Revival homes. Built in 1879 for William and Mary Clotworthy Coleman, the story-and-a-half brick house is one of five known Midway homes designed and built by English architect and builder John Watson.

Both William and Mary were both converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from England. William arrived in Utah in 1862, and two years later, he and his brothers Henry and Lewis settled in the Midway area.

The Colemans hired Watson to build their home in his characteristic Gothic Revival style. Its L-shaped design features intersecting steeply pitched gables, decorative woodwork, and cut sandstone blocks, known as quoins, that accent the corners of the brick walls. A kitchen extension was built behind the original structure. Later owners added a brick bungalow-style front porch in the 1920s and a wooden addition to the rear in the 1950s.

William supported his family as a farmer and freighter, hauling produce to the growing mining community of Park City and transporting farm goods and shingles to Salt Lake City. When his son Hugh Clotworthy Coleman was old enough, he joined his father on those freighting trips.

Hugh, born in Midway in 1870, moved into the house with his family at the age of nine and would call it home for the rest of his life. Like his father, he worked the land, making his living as a farmer and sheepman. He married Elizabeth Alder, and together they had three children. Following Elizabeth's death, Hugh married Elise Rose “Alice” Kohler, and they had six more children.

For decades, the Coleman home was a gathering place for a growing family, as Midway developed from a small farming settlement into the community we know today.

Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the home is a beautiful example of John Watson's craftsmanship.