The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has opened its new Deseret Peak Utah Temple in Tooele, Utah, to the media and to the public, beginning with a media day on Monday morning, Sept. 23.
Welcoming local media representatives to the new house of the Lord for a news conference, a media tour of the temple and then one-on-one interview sessions were general and local Church leaders, including Elder Kevin W. Pearson, a General Authority Seventy and president of the Utah Area; Elder Steven R. Bangerter, a General Authority Seventy and assistant executive director in the Temple Department; and Primary General President Susan H. Porter.
Following the media events, the temple will be open for invited-guest tours, with scheduled visitors including area government, community, business, educational and interfaith leaders.
A public open house is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 26, through Saturday, Oct. 19, excluding Sundays and Saturday, Oct. 5, for general conference.
The Deseret Peak temple will be dedicated on Sunday, Nov. 10, with the dedicatory sessions to be broadcast to all units in the temple district.
Located on a 17.98-acre site in northwest Tooele, the three-story temple is approximately 70,000 square feet and features a central tower, cast-stone exterior and copper shingles. An adjacent 20,000-square-foot meetinghouse has also been built at the site.
More details about the temple dedication — including session times and the assigned presiding Church leader — will be announced later.
In conjunction with the media day, exterior and interior images of the Deseret Peak Utah Temple were first published that same day on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
The Church has 350 total temples dedicated, under construction or announced and in planning. The total includes 197 dedicated temples, with two other temples scheduled for dedication in either September or October, ahead of the Deseret Peak temple’s Nov. 10 dedication.
Design and features
The Deseret Peak temple’s exterior is gypsum-fiber reinforced concrete, with dolomite aggregate from the Tooele Valley added to the admixture.
The design motifs feature salt grass and the lupine flower in the exterior stone, font bowl and interior millwork, with the lupine flower also evident in decorate paint and art glass.
The cliff rose is prominent in millwork, rugs, decorative paint, the baptistry font railings and art class.
In addition to the cliff rose and lupine flower elements, the art glass also includes depictions of native local grasses.
Khaya — an African mahogany — is used for millwork and door veneers, while the carpeting includes broadloom carpets and international nylon rugs. Interior stone are Burdur Beige, Emperador Light, White Cliffs and Aquarella Macuba Thassos White.
Deseret Peak temple timeline
Announced during the April 2019 general conference by President Russell M. Nelson, the temple was initially known as the Tooele Valley Utah Temple. Five months later, on Sept. 25, the first temple location was formally identified in the nearby community of Erda, Utah.
A year after the temple announcement, an exterior rendering was published on April 7, 2020, with interior design renderings following later that month.
On Jan. 19, 2021, the First Presidency announced the temple’s new Deseret Peak name and new location — west of the intersection at 2400 North and 400 West in Tooele, about 2.6 miles southwest of the previous location.
Construction began following the temple’s May 15, 2021, groundbreaking, with Elder Brook P. Hales, a General Authority Seventy, presiding at the event and offering a prayer dedicating the site and construction process.
The Church and its temples in Utah
Utah is home to both the Church’s global headquarters and to nearly 2.3 million Latter-day Saints, who account for approximately two-thirds of the state’s population of 3.4 million people.
The Deseret Peak temple is one of the Church’s 30 total houses of the Lord in Utah and will be the 23rd dedicated temple in the state, including four this year. Others dedicated (with the year of dedication in parenthesis) are the St. George (1877), Logan (1884), Manti (1888), Salt Lake (1893), Ogden (1972), Provo Rock Canyon (1972), Jordan River (1981), Bountiful (1995), Mount Timpanogos (1996), Vernal (1997), Monticello (1998), Draper (2009), Oquirrh Mountain (2009), Brigham City (2012), Payson (2015), Provo City Center ( 2016), Cedar City (2017), Saratoga Springs (2023), Orem (2024), Red Cliffs (2024), Taylorsville (2024) and Layton (2024) temples.
Two are currently under renovation — the Salt Lake and Provo Rock Canyon temples.
Five other temples are under construction or have had ground broken (groundbreaking months are in parenthesis): the Syracuse (June 2021), Lindon (April 2022), Smithfield (June 2022), Ephraim (August 2022) and Heber Valley (October 2022) temples. Two other temples were announced in April 2024 general conference and are in planning — for Lehi and West Jordan.
Deseret Peak Utah Temple
Address: 2400 N. 400 West, Tooele, UT 84074
Announced: April 7, 2019, by President Russell M. Nelson
Groundbreaking: May 15, 2021, presided over by Elder Brook P. Hales, a General Authority Seventy
Open house: Thursday, Sept. 26, through Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, excluding Sundays and Saturday, Oct. 5, for general conference
To be dedicated: Nov. 10, 2024
Property size: 15.5 acres
Building size: 71,998 square feet
Building height: 182.7 feet to top of spire
