2011 Oklahoma's Most Endangered Historic Places

Two more returnees to the Endangered Places List are a pair of structures associated with Bruce Goff, a nationally iconic figure in the history of architecture. The first of these is the Tulsa Club Building, designed relatively early in Goff’s career. The Tulsa Club is an Art-Deco style building completed in 1927 during the height of skyscraper construction in Tulsa, when the city was known as the Oil Capital of the World. Construction of the eleven-story building emerged from a joint effort between the Tulsa Club and the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce. The first five stories of the building were occupied by Chamber of Commerce offices while the upper six stories, and rooftop garden, were home to the Tulsa Club. The floors occupied by the Tulsa Club included dining halls, dormitories, a gymnasium, and various lounges and libraries. The top floor also housed the Sky Terrace, utilized for special luncheons and capable of seating around 100 people.

For decades, the Tulsa Club represented one of the primary gathering places of Tulsa’s wealthy elite. The recent past has not been kind to the building; the Tulsa Club folded and the building was vacated in 1994, becoming home to animals and squatters and deteriorating rapidly. A California developer purchased the building but initiated no restorative action while allowing fines and taxes to mount beyond the worth of the building. The City of Tulsa began foreclosure proceedings in 2009 and the building has suffered through numerous fires, most recently in October 2010. While a local developer recently has been identified to purchase and rehabilitate the building, the outcome of battles over foreclosure, and the resources that will be needed to restore something so badly damaged, remains unclear.