One of the largest private homes built by the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright is on the market in Tulsa, Oklahoma — and it just got a major price cut.
Dubbed “Westhope,” the residence is one of just five homes Wright built with unique, geometric blocks stacked in vertical columns. No fewer than 5,200 panes of glass cover almost half of the exterior, and large skylights let in even more Sooner sunshine. It can be yours for $3.5 million — a 56% drop from its initial asking price in 2023, Mansion Global reported.
At 10,400 square feet, Westhope is one of Wright’s largest private family builds. In addition to five bedrooms and 4.5 baths, buyers get a pool and a guesthouse. Sage Sotheby’s International Realty holds the listing.
It’s one of three Wright homes in the Sooner state, and this particular home was a special labor of love — the architect built it for his cousin, Richard Lloyd Jones. Jones, publisher of the now-defunct Tulsa Tribune, paid over $100,000 for the home in the 1920s, despite his cousin initially budgeting $30,000.
Westhope is the likely location of an oft-cited anecdote associated with Wright’s notorious flat-roof designs, according to Meryle Secrest’s “Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography.” The story goes that on a stormy night, Richard Lloyd Jones called his cousin Wright in a fury. He complained that the roof was leaking on his desk.
Wright reportedly replied, “Richard, why don’t you move your desk?”
In another instance, Jones’s wife was dashing around the living room during a torrential downpour, using pots and pans to catch the various leaks.
“Well,” Mrs. Lloyd Jones reportedly said, “This is what we get for leaving a work of art out in the rain.”
Westhope’s current owner is a Tulsa real estate investor who purchased the home for $2.5 million in 2021 from a Tyson Foods heiress. The seller undertook extensive renovations, including waterproofing, redoing the kitchen and replacing window glass.
The geometric textile-block style of the home is based on a unique system innovated by Wright in the early 1920s. Patterned concrete blocks are created by pouring a concrete mixture into molds.
The blocks are reinforced with steel rods and create a repeated pattern throughout the house.
Westhope is the only example of Wright’s textile block style outside of California.