Polygamous leader's compound now a cozy bed and breakfast
Are you looking for a relaxing place to stay in Hildale, Utah, with enough room for you and your 20 wives? Then you're in luck: the compound built for polygamous leader Warren Jeffs has been turned into America's Most Wanted Suites and Bed & Breakfast.
Now serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting a young girl he considered his bride, Jeffs ordered his followers in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) to build the compound for him in 2011. Jeffs never actually lived there, and it was purchased at auction for $3.6 million by former bodyguard and FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop. Jessop, who bought the property after he won a lawsuit against FLDS church leaders, kept many original features, including a 12-foot concrete fence, intact.
"I left it there so people could go and see how paranoid he was," Jessop told NBC News. "It was my hope that the walls would help as a reminder to the community that if you need walls like this, you're probably doing something wrong."
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The inn is near Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, and the Grand Canyon, and boasts 14 rooms with smart TVs and wi-fi. Rooms run from $85 for a standard room to $200 for a king suite. Jessop's goal is to attract "people of all walks of life who'd like to come to the community and feel welcome," he said. "[It's] something that could be positive instead of sinister."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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