[4] Leavitt's group harked back to church pioneer Joseph Smith, founding a utopian community based on an economic system based on cooperative labor and communal property ownership, principles that Mormon leader Brigham Young had set aside in favor of the tithing system.

Thomas Leavitt built a two-story brick home in Bunkerville for his first wife Louella (Abbott).

[5] The prosperous Leavitt, who had thrived growing grain, raising cattle and selling molasses, built another home for the family.

The design was typical of the homes of Mormon settlers dispersing from Salt Lake northward to Idaho and southward towards Nevada.

It sits on a large lot surrounded by a picket fence, with honey locust trees, chicken coops and the house's original stone granary out back.