The Charles Richins family didn't stay in tents and dugouts very long. After the first year two rooms of red brick were built over the dugouts. The following year three more rooms were added, and eventually the two-story house consisted of fifteen rooms, with two staircases—front and back—and two brick fireplaces. This home was the first one built in Henefer out of material other than logs. The kitchen was a long, narrow room with a wood stove in one end, a brick fireplace in the other, and a great long dining room table in the center. The other room with a fireplace was the parlor. It was furnished with a tall grandfather clock, an organ, a plush settee or two, and a beautiful hardwood table that could be extended to seat twenty people.

The parlor was used for many purposes. Meetings of every nature were held there until the Henefer brick meetinghouse was built in 1872. It was even used as a funeral home on occasion. Parley T. Richins recalled in “My Memories,” that his sister Hattie and Alma Richins had their wedding reception in the parlor with every person in the valley invited. The ‘Big House’ was home to most of the Mormon emigrants as they traveled down Echo Canyon on their way to the Salt Lake Valley. Relatives and friends from England were welcomed, fed and allowed to stay until they could get their feet on the ground. There was seldom a meal that wasn't shared by someone outside the immediate family.

Louisa Richins was an herb doctor and midwife. She was a stately woman with very small, beautiful hands. She attended many of the women at the birth of their children. Parley T. Richins said that Louisa was the midwife for his mother, Esther, when he was born. She always served willingly in time of sickness to man or animal. To her, sickness was sickness, whether in man or beast. Louisa kept her medicines and herbs in a room of the ‘Big House’ that no other member of the family was allowed to enter.

The house was used as a tithing and fast offering settlement house while Charles was Presiding Elder and Bishop. Tithing was paid in kind with such commodities as hay, grain, butter, eggs, vegetables, bricks, adobe, or whatever the individual happened to have. Leonard Richins, one of Charles’ cousins, used one room in the house as a clock repair shop. To read more about the ‘Big House’ reference Henefer Our Valley Home, available at the LDS Family History Library, and on microfiche at LDS Family History Centers.