It's a testament to architect Bruce Goff's vision that nearly 100 years after he designed the Tulsa Club building, the 11-story Zig-Zag Art Deco structure at Fifth Street and Cincinnati Avenue still shimmers with potential.
At least that's the way Josh Barrett sees the old building - beneath the broken glass splashed along the floors, beyond the charred walls and inside the long-empty rooms that once played host to Tulsa's elite but which for nearly two decades have been home to the homeless.
"I want to be able to maintain the nostalgia, maintain the features that are left where people feel the same about the building but also have it be a viable building as part of the downtown," said Barrett, 47, during a recent tour of the building.
He is the new owner, and his early concept for the building calls for making the first floor commercial, floors two through eight residential and nine through 11 restaurant and event space.
"As part of the Art Deco District here, I feel like this building would be marketed as a little bit more high-end apartments," Barrett said. "If you could picture a doorman building-type thing (like) in New York City."
The Tulsa Club building was completed on Dec. 26, 1927, as a joint venture between the Tulsa Club and the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce. For the next quarter century, the Chamber occupied the first five floors and the Tulsa Club the rest. Beginning in the 1950s, the Tulsa Club took over all but the first two floors of the building.
The high-end businessmen's club featured restaurants, workout facilities, bars, dorm rooms and private dining areas.
Barrett purchased the building, which has been shuttered since 1994, in April at a sheriff's sale for $460,000, providing the happy ending city officials had been looking for when six years earlier they began legal action to get the building's former owner, California businessman C.J. Morony, to address code violations and unpaid fines and taxes.
"Something worth noting about the Tulsa Club building is that the city and the community put its foot down and said, 'We are not going to allow this building to be demolished,' recognizing this as an important part of our history," said Amanda DeCort, preservation planner for the city of Tulsa.
Although the building has been ravaged by fire at least four times, it is structurally sound. Yet even from the street, signs of disrepair and neglect are evident: broken windows on every floor, paint spilled on the side of the building, an empty jug of apple juice on the sidewalk.
Inside is worse: graffiti, broken glass, dead birds, sneakers, wooden planks, and empty desks.
"The thieves have taken almost every bit of this copper building," Barrett said.
Almost anything else of value in the building was sold at auction. "There are only a few doorknobs left," Barrett said.
The cavernous ballroom on the ninth floor was once home to dinners, weddings receptions and grand parties. Today it is burned from floor to ceiling and filled with junk.
Barrett hopes to bring the room back to life as an event space.
Mike Crawshaw, the building's former general manager, remembers the room well.
"The main dining room had imported Italian chandeliers," he said. "When the chandeliers were installed - just prior to my coming - apparently it took two men three days to assemble each chandelier."
Crawshaw moved his family from England, where he was working in a 1,000-bed psychiatric hospital, in August 1965 to work at the Tulsa Club. He retired in 1988 after nearly two decades as the building's general manager.
"I think the caliber of the membership, the quality of the members - they were just a wonderful group of people to be involved in," he said.
Barrett said he expects it to cost $15 million to $20 million to repurpose the building as he envisions it. To make that happen, he said, it will be important for the state to keep its historic tax credit program.
The program helps developers recoup some of their rehabilitation costs in return for maintaining certain historic preservation standards. It has been used by the developers of the Mayo Hotel, the Philtower and a former City Hall - now the Aloft hotel - and others.
The program also comes with a time clock: developers have two years to finish a project once it is started.
Barrett, president Vesta Properties, a residential property management company, is hoping to see his project completed within three years.
"We've made more progress in the last two months than it has seen in the last 20 years," he said.
And he insists that, after years of watching the building sit idle, Tulsans can count on the project getting done.
"I see two options," Barrett said. "I will be able to maintain control of the project and build it, or I will sell control of the project to someone else and maintain a smaller ownership and they will build it.
"I have no intention of letting it sit here."
About the Tulsa Club
The Tulsa Club at 115 E. Fifth St. was completed in 1927 during the height of skyscraper construction in Tulsa, according to Preservation Oklahoma.
Built of Bedford stone, the 11-story Art Deco building was designed by architect Bruce Goff. Initially the first five stories were occupied by the Chamber of Commerce offices while the upper six stories and rooftop garden were home to the Tulsa Club, founded by a group of oilmen. The floors occupied by the Tulsa Club included dining halls, dormitories, a gymnasium, a barber shop, and various lounges and libraries. The top floor housed the Sky Terrace, which was used for luncheons and seated around 100 people.
For decades, the Tulsa Club was one of the favored gathering places for Tulsa's wealthy elite.
The Tulsa Club closed in 1994, and the building fell into disrepair. A California developer purchased the building, but vandals and squatters took their toll on the dilapidated structure.
On April 16, a local businessman purchased the building for $460,000 at a sheriff's sale.
Tulsa Club website
Josh Barrett, the new owner of the Tulsa Club, has launched a website about the building. Barrett said he wants to hear from the public about what they would like to see him do with the structure.
He also wants to hear from people who have purchased pieces of the structure, whether it be furniture, fixtures or lights.
To learn more about the building or to contact Barrett, go to
tulsaworld.com/tulsaclub
Kevin Canfield 918-581-8313
kevin.canfield@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: A lot of work to do
