Westhope, Historic residence in Tulsa, United States
Westhope is a two-story house at 3704 South Birmingham Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma, built of pigmented concrete textile blocks in vertical piers alternating with vertical glass bays. The blocks are 20 inches wide, joined by metal rebar rather than mortar, and 5,200 panes of glass cover almost half the exterior. Parts of the facade rise one to two stories, with beveled floor slabs hidden from view.
Frank Lloyd Wright discussed plans for the house with his cousin Richard Lloyd Jones, publisher of the Tulsa Tribune, in 1928, and Jones sent him a list of specifications that year. Construction began in 1930 with Paul Mueller as general contractor and was completed in 1931 at a final cost of $100,000, over budget. Jones died in the house in 1963; his widow sold it to architect M. Murray McCune, and later owners included the Nelson, Holden and Tyson families before investor Stuart Price bought and renovated it in 2021.
The house is also called the Big House, and its name Westhope was coined for the Richard Lloyd Jones family. Jones, publisher of the Tulsa Tribune, was Wright's cousin, and the house stayed in his family until his widow sold it in 1963. The open plan turns rooms at 90-degree angles, with textile blocks used as interior finish.
The property sits on South Birmingham Street in a southern neighborhood of Tulsa and remains a private residence not open to the public. Those interested can view the exterior features from the sidewalk, but should respect the privacy of current occupants.
Westhope's concrete blocks contain embedded specks of pigment, giving them a yellow or "Oklahoma pink" hue, unlike the untinted blocks of Wright's California houses. The blocks measure 20 inches wide and lack decorative engravings, and the exterior walls use two layers of them, tied with metal rebar and sealed with waterproof cement.
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