Frank Lloyd Wright’s Only Skyscraper Is Heading to Auction

Oklahoma’s Price Tower is the only completed skyscraper by Frank Lloyd Wright, the famed architect known for his linear style and harmonious designs. Now, the building in Bartlesville, a city some 50 miles north of Tulsa, is heading to the auction block.

The tower last changed hands less than two years ago. Since then, ownership of the building has “spiraled into a storm of scandals, legal disputes and financial chaos,” according to the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise’s Andy Dossett.

When the current owners, Cynthia and Anthem Blanchard, purchased Price Tower in 2023, they also took on $600,000 of debt, which has since grown to over $2 million. The 19-story building’s tenants—including a hotel, an arts organization and a local magazine—are now preparing to vacate by the end of August. The structure will be sold at auction in October.

Cynthia Blanchard tells FOX23 that she wants to maintain transparency as the sale progresses. “[We have to] navigate this in a way that keeps the public informed, that gives the public the opportunity to be involved,” she says.

Designed in the 1920s, the tower was supposed to be an apartment complex in New York City, but it was never built there due to the Great Depression. In the 1950s, Harold C. Price asked Wright to design the corporate headquarters for his oil pipeline company. The architect was “delighted” to repurpose his plans for the Oklahoma plains, according to the tower’s website. He nicknamed it “the tree that escaped the crowded forest.”

Price Tower is one of three Wright buildings in Oklahoma. Its design was inspired by nature: The architect was trying to evoke “a lone tree in a clearing that looked different from every angle,” as the Art Newspaper’s Elena Goukassian writes.

Four elevator shafts serve as the “trunk” of Price Tower, and its green copper panels are meant to resemble leaves. Since the building is supported by its trunk and “roots” rather than its outer walls, Wright was able to design an exterior made of large glass windows. The tower made the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, and it became a National Historic Landmark in 2007.

Wright also designed furniture for the building’s interior, which the current owners have been selling piece by piece. These sales have generated additional controversy, as some of the items are protected by an easement donated to the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy in 2011.

“This collection of items cannot be sold,” Barbara Gordon, the conservancy’s executive director, tells Architectural Digest’s Abigail Singrey. “Frank Lloyd Wright designed in a holistic environment. He considered not just the building, but the items inside it. It’s important to keep the items together to understand the design.”

As the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise reports, the building could fetch $4 million at auction. The employees of the tower’s inn have been laid off, and tenants like Bartlesville Monthly magazine will need to search for new office space.

“It’s sad; we have been one of the longest-running tenants up there,” Keith McPhail, the magazine’s director of sales and marketing, tells the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise. “We hate to see chains on the door of one of the best buildings in the world.”

Sonja Anderson | READ MORE

Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in New York City.