Elaine Warner
BARTLESVILLE — If you want to get a New Yorker’s attention, tell him Frank Lloyd Wright built his only skyscraper in Bartlesville. The Price Tower is a big deal, and this is a big year for the building — its 50th anniversary.
Wright would be proud. After going through some tough times, the building has, during the past few years, begun to return to its initial glory.
The exhibit, “Wright Restored: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower Interiors and Debut of Price Tower Restoration,” signals the final step.
The lower floors of the building, housing art galleries and offices, the mid-floors with the Price Tower Inn and the 15th and 16th floor with the Copper Restaurant have been completed for some time.
On Oct. 13, with the opening of the exhibit, the public will be able to see the top three floors — the corporate apartment and the executive suite — as they looked the day the building opened in 1956.
The Price Tower has character — it’s as eccentric and unusual as its architect. It’s also a difficult space — it sets its own standards and doesn’t adapt well to contemporary conveniences. The elevators are minute and the rooms are small and quirky.
Walls meet at odd angles and much of the furniture is built in. Wright planned every detail, even creating colors and fabrics. He intended for the building to be multi-purpose, with office, retail and living spaces.
Price Tower has Wright’s stamp on it from the inside out — and it’s brilliant.
Conservators sifted through old photographs, oral histories and newspaper accounts to replicate the colors, fabrics and furnishings.
Since many of the photos were in black and white, exact duplication was complicated. In the case of the main entrance lobby seating, no color photos exist and memories were vague. Finally, a clipping from the Christian Science Monitor was found that described the cushions as turquoise.
The main materials used in the construction of the building also were used in the interiors: copper, aluminum, Philippine mahogany and glass. The walls were buff-colored and the floors, stained concrete in Wright’s favorite color, Cherokee Red.
The draperies in the Price corporate apartment were Belgian linen in coral and flame. The fabric was from a line created by Wright for F. Schumacher & Company. The fabric company was able to re-weave the discontinued pattern for the restoration.
One of the biggest jobs was cleaning the many layers of furniture polish — and grime — off the Philippine mahogany. Sometimes called ribbon mahogany for its distinctive grain, the wood now glows.
One of the most delicate jobs was removing layers of paint covering a mural painted by Wright on the wall in the living room of the 17th- and 18th-floor corporate apartment.
One little corner of the mural had been spared because it was signed by the architect.
Joe Price, youngest son of H.C. Price, who commissioned the building for his company headquarters, told the story of the mural and his reaction to its destruction in a 1990 interview for the Landmark Preservation Council Oral History Archive.
“He (Mr. Wright) designed it; he helped produce it, and when it was finished he signed it, ‘The Blue Moon to Hal from Frank Lloyd Wright.’ It had a blue, half moon mirror on the wall. Later my brother’s wife (Mrs. Hal Price Jr.) wanted to redo the apartment and she hated this round mirror, so she took the blue moon off.
“Then she thought some of the colors (in the mural) didn’t match the drapes she wanted to use or something, so she painted out part of it. I remember my mother sitting on me, with her fingers pointing right down at my face telling me, ‘You do not kill her, you stay away, your brother is the president — you do not kill her.’”
Price had an interesting outlook on the building. “I’ve always argued that the tower was built basically to hold up the 19th floor. The other 18 floors were the pedestal for (his father) who had started out with a one-man welding shop and built himself up to one of the premier pipeline contractors.”
The 19th floor has Price’s secretary’s office and a small reception area. Most of the space on that floor is the executive office.
It features a tall, copper-clad fireplace and a beautiful mural done by several of Wright’s apprentices.
The one item in the room that cannot be restored is the huge globe that Price insisted on, over the objection of Wright, who didn’t want a round object in his triangular building.
Map companies contacted would only do contemporary maps, not the 1955 version of the world.
From Oct. 13 though Dec. 31, the public is invited to revisit that world. For reservations and information about the $8 tours, call the Price Tower Arts Center at 918-336-4949.
