GPS City GuideTulsaWesthope

Stop 12 of 15 · Tulsa audio walking tour

Westhope

Midtown · 1931 · Wright's Textile-Block Masterpiece

What you'll hear here: about 90 seconds of narration about Westhope, and how it fits Midtown, written to be listened to on the spot rather than read at home.

Frank Lloyd Wright completed Westhope at 3704 South Birmingham Avenue in 1931 for his cousin Richard Lloyd Jones. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1931 for his cousin Richard Lloyd Jones, the publisher of the Tulsa Tribune, this two-story house is one of only three buildings in Oklahoma that Wright designed and has been cited as the only one of his textile-block houses outside California. The structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The house sits on a flat prairie site covering about 2 acres, and the estate extends to a guesthouse, a garage, lawns, a pool, and a pond. Look closely at the textile blocks: they form vertical piers fastened together by metal rebar, deliberately lacking decoration, and they alternate with vertical glass bays. Together those glass bays hold 5,200 panes of glass and cover almost half the exterior.

The interior was planned on an open plan with spaces intersecting at 90-degree angles, decorated with textile blocks; the home is cited as having five or six bedrooms and counts among Wright’s largest house designs. Picture 5,200 panes of glass set into those vertical piers, glinting across the pool, pond, and lawns of this two-acre estate.

Where it is

Coordinates
36.10972, -95.95417
Area
Midtown
Era
1931 · Wright's Textile-Block Masterpiece
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Three stops free. No account needed. The audio plays itself as you walk.