Nor can we learn much more with regard to their residences than we can concerning their dress. The most detailed account given of any man's home is that of Nephi, the son of Helaman. His house was situated on the main highway which led to the chief market place of the city of Zarahemla. In front of his house was a garden, and near the gate opening upon the highway was a tower, upon the top of which the prophet was accustomed to pray. These towers, from the numerous references made to them, either as private property or attached to their places of worship, as watch towers or as a part of their system of fortification, must have formed quite a conspicuous feature in the Nephite landscape.
The residences of the rich were elegant and spacious, adorned with exceedingly fine wood work, carving, etc., and with ornaments of gold, silver, copper, brass, steel and other metals. From the importance attached to the fact that but little timber existed in the northern continent when the Nephites began to spread over it, and consequently that the immigrants had to build their houses of cement, it is presumable that wood entered largely into the composition of the buildings. This idea is strengthened by the frequent reference made to the skill of their artisans in wood working, and in the excellence they had attained in the refining of ores and the manufacturing of metal ornaments for their houses and persons. Regarding one monarch it is written: King Noah built many elegant and spacious buildings; and he ornamented them with fine works of wood, and of all manner of precious things, of gold and of silver, and of iron, and of brass, and of ziff and of copper; and he also built him a spacious palace and a throne in the midst thereof, all of which was of fine wood, and was ornamented with gold and silver, and with precious things. And he also caused that his workmen should work all manner of fine work within the walls of the temple, of fine wood, and of copper, and of brass, etc. This was in the land of Lehi-Nephi.
We next turn to the food of this people. Here, also we are without definite information, but we can measurably judge of their staple articles of diet by noticing the grains they cultivated most extensively: to wit, wheat, corn and barley, the latter appearing to have been the standard by which they gauged the price of other commodities. Great attention was also given to the planting of fruit trees and grape vines. From the fruit of the grape abundance of wine was manufactured, of which (we think we do the Nephites no injustice by saying it) they were as fond as are the generality of mankind. They were not as attached to a meat diet as were the Lamanites, who were great flesh-eaters, but they apparently kept large flocks and herds as a source of food supply, as well as for wool, leather, etc., and to provide for the numerous sacrifices enjoined by the law of Moses, which they carefully observed, until the offering of that greatest of all sacrifices on Mount Calvary, of which all the rest were but types and shadows.