It’s small, plain and quite run-down, but this former Latter-day Saint chapel tucked on a residential street in Central City is steeped in Utah history.

Now the drooping 142-year-old building at 438 E. 700 South in Salt Lake City, known to some as the Danish Chapel, is to be preserved and renovated into a home instead of being torn down.

The new owner of what was once the original Second Ward Assembly Hall of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, built in 1883, has confirmed he is seeking zoning incentives at City Hall to help him refurbish the pioneer-era structure.

Kyle Richards said he recently bought the two-story brick chapel, with its severely cracked white-plaster facade, after admiring it while driving by regularly over almost two decades — and as he watched other unique buildings in the neighborhood vanish to demolition.

“I finally said, ‘OK, I’m going to spend my life savings on this,’” said Richards, “‘and see if we can make this thing live.’”

The longtime city resident and real estate agent has filed initial plans to renovate the aging chapel and an addition on the back dating from about 1893, with the goal of eventually making it his primary residence.

His request to the city for incentive credits is being made under a relatively new ordinance on adaptive reuses of historic structures, meant to encourage turning older buildings into new housing.

“That’s the hope,” Richards said of the possible incentives, describing his purchase of the building as “a full-on gamble.”

“I’m naive enough,” he said lightheartedly, “to where I didn’t know that adaptive reuse even existed before I finally bought it.”

Story of how SLC ‘came to be’

According to a well-known early history of Utah’s predominant faith, the brick chapel replaced an adobe schoolhouse that had been built in the same area in 1852.

The valley’s original Latter-day Saint settlers of Scandinavian descent are said to have gathered in the chapel until 1908, when the stately yellow-bricked Second Ward chapel opened at the nearby corner of 700 South and 500 East.

The church then sold the original chapel, according to historians, and, for a time, it became a knitting factory.

About two years ago, the unassuming building and back addition were listed for sale on the real estate site Zillow as a “developer’s dream” — touching off alarm bells among history experts at Preservation Utah that it might be razed.

“To lose this building,” the nonprofit preservation group posted at the time, “is to lose a structure that tells the story of how, in so many ways, Salt Lake City came to be.”

‘Your heart just sinks’

Richards, who is a Latter-day Saint, said the specter of it being demolished motivated him to buy it.

“Your heart just sinks,” he said, “as soon as you see it.”

The interior, Richards said, has sustained heavy water damage through the years. Though many of its original trusses seem to be holding up, some of its beams are charred and one is sagging.

“That,” he added, “is the biggest issue.”

In what Richards estimates will be roughly two years of work, his renovation plans call for living spaces spread over two floors at the back of the building, including three bedrooms on the second floor.

He said he intends to restore the facade to its original brick, if feasible, and to convert the chapel’s former main worship space at the front of the building into a refurbished “Great Room” with a high ceiling and adjoining library.

Richards said he will use his YouTube channel to chronicle the renovation project and solicit donations from those who might want to chip in.

“It’s in very rough shape,” he said, “so it’s going to take me a while to bring it back to life.”