Road Trip to Oklahoma . . . Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Road trip!!  On Tuesday we travelled to Bartlesville, Oklahoma.  I had made arrangements for us to tour Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower, the Bartlesville Community Center, Redeemer Lutheran Church Educational Building and several privately owned Bruce Goff homes.  Another busy day!

We headed north into Missouri before going west into Oklahoma.  Our route was very rural, passing through a few small towns along the way.  We saw an incredible number of very large Red-Tailed Hawks along the side of the highway, sitting and watching – surveying their domains as I say – with their creamy white breast feathers fluffed up against the chill of the Oklahoma morning.  I wish I had counted them.

Upon arrival in Bartlesville, we headed directly to the Price Tower.  We were a little early for our scheduled tour and we used that time to view the exterior, the lobby area and, of course, visit the gift shop.  Since books are my weakness, you can imagine that I had to get one or two; however, I got Bruce Goff books – not Frank Lloyd Wright books.

The Price Tower is Frank Lloyd Wright’s only skyscraper and was originally designed to be built in New York.  That never materialized so when Harold C. Price asked FLW to design an office building for him, Mr. Wright suggested that he build the skyscraper – and he did – which explains why there’s a skyscraper sitting in downtown Bartlesville, Oklahoma.  It has been restored and renovated in recent years and it now houses The Price Tower Inn.

Price Tower incorporates a tremendous amount of copper in its design.  The copper – now patinated –  creates an organic feel against the expansive Oklahoma sky.  This is FLW's one design that integrates a vertical design with his renowned horizontal lines.  One other architourist joined us for our tour of the building which included the H.C. Price Company Corporate Apartment with its original Wright interior, including original furniture, albeit with reproduction textiles.  China used in the company cafeteria with the special “HCP” cipher design FLW created for Harold Price is on display.  However, the highlight of the tour was the visit to the restored 19th floor penthouse executive office of H.C.Price - absolutely marvelous!  To top off the tour, we were able to view correspondence between FLW and Mr. Price.

FLW also designed Mr. Price’s home in Bartlesville – “Hillside”.  I tried every way and contact I possibly could to get us in to see it, but failed.  Of course, you can’t talk about “Hillside” without talking about the house on the Price property that Bruce Goff designed for Harold’s son, Joe.  The Joe Price house – "Shin'en Kan" – fell  victim to arsonists in December 1996.  It remains an unsolved case. 

We were directed to our lunch stop – Weezy's – which was just a block or so down the street.  As usual, I had researched and tracked down the local “dives” and we enjoyed this one, ordering one of the daily lunch specials.  After lunch we headed toward the Community Center which sits diagonally across from Price Tower.  This walk took us by the “Shin’en Kan” gate which now sits outside Price Tower.  It is one of the few remaining artifacts of the house.

The Bartlesville Community Center was designed by Taliesin associate William Wesley Peters, FLW's first apprentice and  son-in-law.   It is extremely reminiscent of the Grady Gammage Auditorium on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe – one of FLW’s last works.  Color-wise the BCC would fit well in the desert but it’s not out of place on the plains.  The two buildings – Price Tower and the BCC – actually complement each other well.  To borrow from Pat Conroy, “ . . .they seem to acknowledge each other . . . in both apposition and concordance . . .”.

Tours of the BCC are easily arranged and our scheduled tour was extensive – the auditorium, backstage, the gallery, the lobby, the lower level – we saw it all! 

Next appointment – the Bruce Goff designed Redeemer Lutheran Church Educational Building.  Our first Bruce Goff viewing!  The first thing we learn is that Bruce Goff designed a sanctuary building for the church but they chose not to use his design.  The sanctuary is somewhat architecturally sympathetic to its predecessor but it lacks, shall we say, the “pizzazz” of the Bruce Goff building.  We saw the elevation drawings of Bruce’s proposed sanctuary and we all agreed that they made a huge mistake by not building it.  It would be quite the building to see!

So, with great anticipation, we headed to the Educational Building.  The obvious exterior feature that just screams “Bruce Goff designed this!” are the teal glass cullets sprinkled around on the walls and congregated on the corners into skyward points.  These teal cullets were also used in “Shin’en Kan” and Bavinger House.  Redeemer Lutheran may soon be the sole survivor of these creations.

The porte-cochere has metal adornments that look much like the shaft and fletchings of an arrow.  Was this Bruce's nod to the Native American heritage of the area?  Most likely . . .

The interior still has the original Goff designed woodwork with inlay that Bruce and his associates did themselves.  There is quite a display of this intricate work in the entryway.  Diamond-shaped windows complete the Goffian features.  Hopefully this building, its nuances and its uniqueness will be preserved.

The rest of the afternoon was devoted to Goff.  We next visited a private residence in the adjacent neighborhood which has been lovingly restored to its original splendor and decorated in period style, down to the restored pull-out range unit in the kitchen.  The owner was incredibly generous and accommodating!  Thank you!  After a thorough tour of the house – inside and out – we were taken next door to his sister’s house in order to experience her unique, fun and entertaining style – which included a small vintage travel trailer in the yard which could be a guest room or a playhouse.  A very pleasant, interesting and fulfilling visit; we just wished we could have stayed longer.

On our way out of the neighborhood, we did a drive-by of another Goff-designed private residence and then headed a few miles north of Bartlesville to Dewey to see the Comer House.  The Comer House is empty and I understand that the owners are interested in selling it.  We either missed our contact or they forgot about us, but we did get to see the exterior of the house.  Comer House is definitely one of Bruce’s creations and it is rather contradictory to its neighbors – but not offensively so.  Its singularity enables it to be its own entity. 

We jump into the car and dash back to Bartlesville for another private residence visit.  Again, we either missed our ETA or we were forgotten.  We did have a nice exterior viewing and noted some similarities to the Comer House. Unlike Comer, this house is set far off the road and is quite hidden from view.  Like Comer, this house has extended rafters with light fixtures  . . . well, not quite as extended.

We headed over to the ash pile that is the remains of “Shin’en Kan” - our pilgrimage, a visit of homage to the memory of the once unique and spectacular home.  It is marked “No Trepassing” but we just used the site as a turnaround spot while acknowledging what was once there and mourning its senseless loss.  Some glass cullets can still be found in the ruins.  Through the years these cullets have been spread near and far by fellow architourists wanting to have a piece of what has been called Bruce Goff’s masterpiece.  One of these cullets graces Bruce Goff’s grave marker.

There were still a few more Goff homes on the list, so we did the obligatory drive-bys on our way to dinner at another local restaurant, Murphy’s Steak House, where we got their specialty, the Hot Hamburger.  (Well, we got the junior cheeseburger version and it was an incredible amount of food!)  The Hot Hamburger is an open-face burger, topped with fries and covered with gravy.  (Oklahoman poutine?)  It was quite good and you definitely know why their motto is “Gravy Over All!”.

We then headed back to Bella Vista, traveling under a night sky filled with a mulitude of stars, accented with the Milky Way, driving through the wide open spaces, free of urban light pollution.  A beautiful end to another amazing day . . .