Mummers Theater / Stage Center
In 1970, the curtain rose on downtown Oklahoma City's Stage Center, sparking a new era in state theater history. Internationally acclaimed architect John Johansen designed the modern theater, with Seminoff Bowman & Bode as associate architects, and the innovative structure received the prestigious American Institute of Architects Honors Award for it idiosyncratic, "anti-geometric" design. Architects and students from around the world made the trek to Oklahoma City to tour the building, which was considered among the century's finest examples of modern architecture. Johansen's original model is on display in New York City's Museum of Modern Art.
The Mummers and other theater companies called Stage Center home until the building closed in 1986. One year later, the Arts Council of Oklahoma City purchased the facility and renovated it for $2 million. The rehabilitation work was done by Rand Elliott, FAIA of Elliott + Associates Architects and Stage Center reopened in 1992. In the 2000s, Stage Center operated as a multi-use facility for the arts and was home to Carpenter Square Theatre, Inner City Dance, and the Oklahoma Visual Artists Coalition.
A 2010 flood closed the building for good and it was demolished in 2014. Go here to read more about Stage Center.
1991 – Renovation plans by Elliott + Associates
Stage Center, 2013:
Being demolished:
Morrison – Kerr House
Located in the heart of Nichols Hills, this home was originally designed for W.P. Morrison, but either during the design phase or construction, it appears that the Morrisons backed out and Robert S. Kerr, Jr., purchased the home. He and his family lived here for over three decades, and the home remains very original today.
morrison-kerr house – raymond carter notes
morrison-kerr house – wp morrison house
morrison-kerr house – list of sheets
morrison-kerr house – exterior elevations
morrison-kerr house – elevations
morrison-kerr house – elevation
morrison-kerr house – elevation 2
morrison-kerr house – finish schedule
morrison-kerr house – front door
morrison-kerr house – foundation plan
morrison-kerr house – foundation plan 2
morrison-kerr house – foundation plan – footing sections
morrison-kerr house – floorplan
morrison-kerr house – floorplan – master bedroom
morrison-kerr house – floorplan – guest room
morrison-kerr house – floorplan – gallery library drawing room
morrison-kerr house – floorplan – family vestibule
morrison-kerr house – electrical symbols
morrison-kerr house – electrical
morrison-kerr house – electrical plan – second floor
morrison-kerr house – door schedule
morrison-kerr house – bedroom and balcony
morrison-kerr house – door schedule
morrison-kerr house – east overhang of master bedroom
morrison-kerr house – overhangs
morrison-kerr house – profile section
morrison-kerr house – typical wall section
Bretz House
Local firm Berlowitz & Commander designed this home for hydraulic engineer, C.E. Bretz and his wife Mamie, on five wooded acres that once belonged to the Borne Dairy Farm. The home is perfectly sited atop a hill overlooking the acreage, which also includes a century-old rock horse barn.
Bretz House – map of acreage 1
Bretz House – map of acreage 2
Bretz House – Berlowitz & Commander stamp
Bretz House – floorplan and terrace
Bretz House – club room fireplace
Bretz House – bathroom tile plan
Bretz House – sections AA BB CC
Sprehe-Lawrencce House
This home was built for the Sprehe family, but architect Robert Lawrence of the firm Noftsger & Lawrence lived in this home for over four decades until his death in 2011. His wife remained in the home until 2016, when new owners heavily remodeled it.
Sprehe House – exterior elevations 2
Sprehe House – exterior elevations 3
Sprehe House – exterior elevations
Sprehe House – exterior stair detail
Sprehe House – brick planter and retaining wall
Sprehe House – entry and living room
Sprehe House – kitchen and dining room
Sprehe House – kitchen details
Sprehe House – master bedroom 2
Sprehe House – master bedroom hall
Sprehe House – second level floorplan
Sprehe House – second floor roof
Sprehe House – basement mechanical plan
Sprehe House – finish schedule
Sprehe House – fireplace detail
Sprehe House – foundation plan
Sprehe House – sill and entry door
Sprehe House – mullion and window
Sprehe House – lighting fixture schedule
Sprehe House – lighting plan kitchen and living
Sprehe House – luminous ceiling kitchen
Sprehe House – second floor electrical
Hicks House
R. Duane Conner designed this home for his sister and her family on a hillside lot in suburban Tahlequah. The family remained in the home until the 1990s and now its third owner is completing a sensitive updating of the home.
Hicks House – Tahlequah – upper level
Hicks House – Tahlequah – lower level
Hicks House – Tahlequah – East Elevation
Hicks House – Tahlequah – West Elevation
Hicks House_roof joist bearing elevations
Hicks House_plan for foundation and slab 1
Hicks House – foundation and slab details
Fox & Horn
Image provided by Gary McCowen
The stunning organic modern building that housed Fox & Horn restaurant made the eatery a true destination spot in Oklahoma City. Soon after its opening in 1974, The Oklahoman called the new dining spot “one of the most beautiful restaurants in the city,” and the design was so integral to the success of the establishment that the building was included in early advertisements for the restaurant.
After becoming a variety of restaurants over the years, the 9,400 sf building was auctioned off in 1991 and became medical offices. In the May 2013 tornado that swept through SW OKC and Moore, the building sustained damage, and the old and still glamorous Fox & Hound building was demolished in the summer of 2015.
Fox & Horn Restaurant – upper level – club
Fox & Horn Restaurant – lower level – mail level plan
Fox & Horn Restaurant – dining expansion – preliminary drawings
Kennedy House
Engineer Garth Kennedy designed this home for himself and his family on a heavily wooded lot overlooking a creek, and he remained in the home until moving to an assisted living center in 2016. A buyer purchased and all of its contents the home the same year and recently completed a thoughtful and sensitive restoration of the house and outdoor spaces.
Garth Kennedy these site studies in the 1950s, likely during the design process for the home.
Bainbridge House
This home was designed for Jewell Bainbridge, who was the second wife of movie star, Tom Mix, and it was featured in the April 1948 issue of American Home magazine.
Papahronis House
Architect John Bozalis designed this mid-century modern home in Edgemere Park for Johnny Papahronis, who owned the beloved Lunch Box restaurant in downtown Oklahoma City.
Oklahoma Museum of Art Gate
Frank and Merle Buttram constructed their grand, 30 room mansion in the heart of Nichols Hills in 1937 and after their deaths, a group purchased the estate in 1975 and donated it to the Oklahoma Museum of Art. In 1989, the museum merged with the Oklahoma Art Center to form the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, which is now located downtown. This gate was designed to advertise the Oklahoma Museum of Art and it is still in place, even though the former museum is once again a private residence.
OKC Museum of Art Entrance Gate
(photo courtesy of the Oklahoma History Center)
Dannold House
The first two pages of the following plans belong to the Dannold House, which is located in Quail Creek in Oklahoma City.
Harris House
One of the first mid-century modern homes constructed in Central Oklahoma was this house designed by OU professor and university architect, Richard J. Kuhlman. In the days before air conditioning, his creative design, which included an interior courtyard, allowed for cool breezes to enter and circulate around the house to keep it cool during hot Oklahoma summers. The design was so innovative that it was featured in several national publications.
Diagrams showing air circulation:
McConnell House
This home was George Seminoff’s first big project after graduating from OSU, and it featured a leather floor in the library, hexagonal-shaped rooms with custom built-in storage, and spectacular views of the pool and backyard from nearly every room.
McConnell House floorplan:
Seminoff House
This unique home was built in phases beginning in 1959 when recent OSU graduate George Seminoff constructed a giant, one-room home for himself. As he married and had children, he expanded the home to include a bedroom wing and a second story den and children’s rooms. The completed home received an AIA award and was featured in Living Now magazine.
Seminoff House floorplan:
Vollendorf House
Dean Bryant Vollendorf designed this home, which he dubbed the Mustang, while he was an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma. The bright and airy home included an indoor/outdoor atrium, three bedrooms, and two baths in 1,400sf. During the ’60s, Vollendorf showcased many of his designs, including the Mustang, in the New Homes Guide and sold plans to interested readers for a small fee. The rendering and floorplan below are from the Winter 1967 issue of the magazine.
vollendorf house – new homes guide rendering
vollendorf house – new homes guide floorplan
Also, go here to read more about Vollendorf and his association with the New Homes Guide.
Coston House
The very modern Coston House was designed and built around an existing territorial farmhouse:
To seamlessly blend old and new, Coston mimicked the A-frame roof design of the Land Run-era farmhouse in the new addition.
Here’s the home today:
You can read more about this award-winning design here and here.
Coston House – Bird’s Eye View
Central National Motor Bank expansion
The original, one-story Central National Motor Bank was completed in 1959 and designed by the same firm, Wright & Selby, that was also hired 15 years later to add a second story to the structure. The bank building and annex drive-thru across the street is now owned by Oklahoma City Public Schools.
Cover page and rendering of bank
Plan – Water Service and Meter Location
Annex drive-thru paving detail
Vault areas and employee lounges
Room Finish Schedule, floor 1, page 1
Room Finish Schedule, floor 1, page 2
Longitudnal Section Looking North
Basement Floor – Foundation Plan
First Floor and Terrace Framing Plan
Citizens State Bank / Gold Dome
Citizens State Bank opened for business on May 27, 1948 and, as one of the only suburban-based banks, it grew so rapidly that the directors looked to expand within a few short years. They chose a site at the corner of NW 23rd and Classen where the old Jefferson School had recently closed and hired Bailey Bozalis Dickinson & Roloff to design a thoroughly modern building that would be a true bank of the future. Robert Roloff returned with plans for a Buckminster Fuller-inspired geodesic dome, which proved to be just what the directors were looking for. The Gold Dome opened to great fanfare in 1958 and remains a beloved architectural icon today.
Gold Dome Opening Commemorative Publication
(vintage photo courtesy the Oklahoma History Center)
Duncan House
Gus Dannhauser was a builder who began to dabble in residential design in the mid-1960s. This interesting hexagonal home home was likely his first and perhaps only completed design before Dannhauser’s untimely death in 1969.
Jamestown Condominiums
With its buildings of varying widths and heights, brick-paved streets, and gaslit street lamps, the quiet and secluded Jamestown complex, located on NW 63rd between Independence and Drexel was modeled after the historic Georgetown in Washington D.C. It was the first condo development in Oklahoma City and was originally intended to consist of 130 mostly two bedroom units in the $25,000 to $40,000 price range ($195,000 – $310,000 in 2018); however, demand wasn’t as high as the developers hoped and only 40 or so were actually constructed.
Some units featured split-level floor plans with the dining room overlooking the living area, as pictured in this 1966 photo from the Oklahoma History Center’s OPUBCO archives:
Keso Clinic
Dr. Larson Keso wanted a timeless design for his new orthodontic clinic near Baptist Hospital, and he wasn’t satisfied until architect Bill Halley presented his seventh drawing for the building. Keso’s discriminating tastes were certainly rewarded with this chic piece of organic modernism that is as timeless as he hoped it would be.
The drawings in this collection include some of Halley’s early designs for the clinic.
Keso Clinic – rejected design 1
Keso Clinic – rejected design 2
Keso Clinic – rejected design 3
Keso Clinic – drawing of accepted design 1
Keso Clinic – drawing of accepted design 2
Miller House
Located on a large lot in the heart of Nichols Hills, this home was designed by architects Norman Berlowitz and A.C. Commander for Willard Miller and his family.
Lincoln Plaza
The 24-acre Lincoln Plaza was developed in two stages beginning in 1967 by John Lewis, president of First Fidelity Corporation. Eager to revitalize the increasingly seedy Lincoln Boulevard, Lewis believed that the complex would breathe new life into the area with its trademart, hotel, and office complex. He hired the architecture firm of Halley Riek & Associates to design the complex.
Although the trademart was never built, the rest of the complex opened to great fanfare in 1969, with Hertz and Wilson Company as anchor tenants in the office building. Boasting the most modern amenities in town, the hotel quickly filled up with patrons, including Elvis Presley, and its meeting rooms and restaurant became a second home to many local politicians and businessmen.
The drawings in this collection are preliminary site studies for Lincoln Plaza.
Kerr-McGee Tower
The 30-story Kerr-McGee Tower was designed by Pietro Belluschi with Frankfurt Short Emery & McKinley as associates. It opened in 1972 and features windows that vary in size as the structure soars to the sky. Over the years, the tower has received numerous awards, including the “25 Year Award of Excellence" from the Oklahoma AIA. SandRidge Energy purchased the building in 2007 and extensively renovated the entire campus.
Capitol Hill High School Fieldhouse
The state-of-the-art domed fieldhouse was such a novelty when it was completed in 1955 that it was featured in Oklahoma Teacher magazine and a 1950s-era book put together by the Oklahoma City Board of Education called Oklahoma City: Capital of Soonerland. Today, the fieldhouse is still in use and hosts both high school and college-level activities.
Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF)
The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) was established in 1946 as a non-profit biomedical research institute. Over 7,000 people throughout the state donated $2.25 million to construct this state-of-the-art facility, which was constructed by contractor, J. Bollinger and opened in 1950.
St. Luke’s United Methodist Church
St. Luke’s is perhaps Oklahoma City’s grandest mid-century modern church and is a masterful piece of art and architecture. Architect Truett Coston began the project by designing the Education Building in 1949. It was constructed the following year and the congregation used that space while Coston began designing the main sanctuary and chapel.
For the sanctuary and chapel, Coston spared no expense and customized every detail, from the exterior Norwegian Blue granite where the name of the church appears in gold leaf to the three interlocking brass circles (called a triquetra) that make up the door handles, to the shellstone walls in the 1,800-seat sanctuary that are reminiscent of the fisherman who were the first apostles, to the 185-foot bell tower with a carillon of 42 bells.
As for the 40-foot-tall stained glass windows that appear on both the north and south sides of the church, artist Robert Harmon captured various Biblical characters in magnificent modern detail. Also, because one of St. Luke’s parishioners was confined to a wheelchair and found it difficult to maneuver around the church, Coston became a real pioneer when he made the building handicapped accessible.
Today, the church is little changed and is as remarkable now as it was when it was completed in 1957. Go here to view a rare St. Luke’s brochure from that time.
Plaza Tower Hotel
The 10-floor, hexagonal-shaped Plaza Tower Hotel was the first hotel built in OKC since the Skirvin Tower was completed in 1938. The building housed a generous lobby, dining room, and various shops. While it was constructed next to the ever-expanding St. Anthony medical complex and was the only upscale Midtown hotel, the Plaza Tower never really took off and, within a few years, was converted to office space and renamed the Shartel Professional Building. In 1986, new owners announced that the building would undergo yet another conversion, this time to an elderly living center, but the continuing economic downturn kept cash-strapped developers from pursuing the plan. Two years later, OKC’s most modern hotel was unceremoniously demolished. The site sat vacant for over 25 years until construction began on the LIFT apartments in 2016.
Go here to view a brochure from the Plaza Tower Hotel.
First Christian Church
Even a near-decade before its dedication day, the distinctive eggshell-shaped dome of the First Christian Church prompted minister William "Bill" Alexander to dub it "the church of tomorrow."
But it almost never saw the light of day. One of a campus of buildings designed by architect Duane Conner in 1956, the unique concrete shape with cutout arches had been deemed of questionable structural integrity by consulting experts. However, in early 1955, a representative of the American Concrete Institute convinced Conner to proceed. The interior arrangement for the 2,000-seat sanctuary also was considered unusual at the time.
Although the First Christian Church congregation dates back to the 1889 Land Run, its first building (1894) was located at Third Street and Harvey Avenue. Two other locations were utilized before the church moved to its present structure, which cost $1.3 million and employed the specialized skills of 600 individuals.
The original campus is completed by a 130-foot-tall bell tower; a circular fine arts building, containing the colored-quartz-paneled Jewel Box Theater; and a four-story education building constructed of high-pressure, steam-cured concrete blocks.
Go here to read a detailed history about the planning and construction of this mid-century modern gem.
Select A Plan To View
1956-FirstChristianChurch-Dome
1956-FirstChristianChurch-Dome2
1956-FirstChristianChurch-Sanctuary-Dome Superstructure
1956-FirstChristianChurch-Sanctuary Education and Jewel Box
1956-FirstChristianChurch-SouthElevation
1956-FirstChristianChurch-StairDetail
1947-FirstChristianChurch-Amphitheater
1946-FirstChristianChurch-SitePlan
1977-FirstChristianChurch-Chapel Remodel-Pojezny
1964-FirstChristianChurch-YouthCenter-Pojezny
1970-FirstChristianChurch-Altar-Design-Pojezny
Oklahoma State Capitol
The Oklahoma State Capitol is the house of government of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It is the building that houses the Oklahoma Legislature and executive branch offices. It is located along Lincoln Boulevard in Oklahoma City. The present structure includes a dome completed in 2002. Oklahoma’s first capital was Guthrie, Oklahoma, but it moved to Oklahoma City in 1910. Construction began on the Oklahoma State Capitol in 1914 and was completed in 1917. Originally, it housed the judicial branch of Oklahoma, but the state’s high courts moved most of their operations to the Oklahoma Judicial Center in 2011, leaving only the Supreme Court Hearing Chamber in the capitol building.
The state capitol complex is the only state capitol grounds in the United States with active oil rigs.
State government officials let voters decide on whether or not to move the capital to Oklahoma City. On June 11, 1910, the state seal was taken from Guthrie and moved south to Oklahoma City, where the Oklahoma State Capitol is located today. Lee Cruce, the second Governor of Oklahoma commissioned the architectural construction of the present day structure. Prior to its construction, state government offices were housed in the Huckins Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City.
Construction on the Oklahoma State Capitol began after a groundbreaking ceremony on July 20, 1914. Architects Soloman Andrew Layton and S. Wemyss-Smith were paid $75,000 to develop the architectural plans, while James Stewart & Company received the construction contract. The building’s exterior is constructed mainly of Indiana limestone, with a base of local Oklahoma pink granite, and Oklahoma black granite for the grand staircase. The interior prominently features marble as well as fixtures from a variety of sources. While original plans called for a dome, it was omitted due to cost overruns discovered in 1915 when the original $1.5 million appropriated by the Oklahoma Legislature proved insufficient to fund the additional structure necessary to support and construct the dome.
In 1998, state legislators and the governor enacted legislation to create the Oklahoma Centennial Act, which formed the Oklahoma Capitol Complex and Centennial Commemoration Commission. The commission worked to fund a dome for the Oklahoma State Capitol and construction of the dome began in 2001 and was completed in 2002. Design of the dome was completed by architects and engineers, Frankfurt-Short-Bruza Associates, PC. It included a 22 feet (6.7 m) bronze sculpture called The Guardian.
The original building was completed on June 30, 1917.
Select a Plan to view
1 – 1917 Orig Capital Building – Basement Floor Plan
2 – 1917 Orig Capital Building – First Floor Plan
3 1917 Orig Capital Building – Second Floor Plan
4 – 1917 Orig Capital Building – Third Floor Plan
5 – 1917 Orig Capital Building – Fourth Floor Plan
6 – 1917 Orig Capital Building – Fifth Floor
7 – 1917 Orig Capital Building – Roof Plan
8 – 1917 Orig Capital Building – Exterior Elevations
9 – 1917 Orig Capital Building – Exterior Elevations2
10 – 1917 Orig Capital Building – Bldg Sections