Westhope

Tulsa, United States

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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Westhope, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1931 in Tulsa's Midtown neighborhood, is a two-story residence built for Richard Lloyd Jones, publisher of the Tulsa Tribune and Wright's cousin. One of only three buildings Wright designed in Oklahoma and often cited as his sole textile-block house outside California, Westhope sits on approximately two acres and features Wright's characteristic open-plan design with spaces intersecting at ninety-degree angles. The structure employs vertical textile-block piers reinforced with metal rebar and alternated with extensive glass bays containing 5,200 panes, which cover nearly half the exterior—a striking composition that proved controversial upon completion, with observers comparing it variously to a glass house or a penitentiary. Among Wright's largest residential designs with five or six bedrooms, the estate encompasses a guesthouse, garage, pool, and pond. Construction, overseen by contractor Paul Mueller and beginning in 1930, exceeded its original budget, reaching a final cost of $100,000. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the house has passed through several owners since Jones's death in 1963 and underwent renovation in recent years.