Price Tower, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Only Skyscraper, Is Getting a New Beginning After Months of Controversy

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Price Tower, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Only Skyscraper, Is Getting a New Beginning After Months of Controversy

Photo: Denis Tangney Jr/Getty Images

Frank Lloyd Wright’s only skyscraper, the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, has been embroiled in legal battles and controversy for the past several years. But now, the storied building has a new owner and seemingly a fresh start. On May 5, the tower sold to McFarlin Building LLC for $1.4 million as ordered by an Oklahoma bankruptcy court. The new owners include John Snyder, a former executive with Manhattan Construction; his daughter, Macy Snyder-Amatucci, who has experience with several historic restorations in Oklahoma and Texas; and Bartlesville-based investor Dale Forrest.

The ***** represents the end of what has been a years-long, at times contentious, legal battle. The 19-story, 221-foot building originally housed offices and apartments for the H.C. Price Company. However, after the business closed in 1981, the building struggled to find its place. It was sold to Phillips Petroleum Company, which used it for storage. In 2000, Phillips donated the tower to a newly formed nonprofit, the Price Tower Arts Center. They created a museum dedicated to Wright, opened a boutique hotel—the Inn at Price Tower—and established two floors as the Copper Bar and Restaurant. Other spaces were rented as offices, but the nonprofit struggled with rising maintenance costs, eventually falling deep into debt.

In March 2023, Price Tower sold to Copper Tree, a group of private investors helmed by Cynthia Blanchard, for a mere $10. As part of the inexpensive price, the company agreed to take on the nonprofit’s debt and pour $10 million into the preservation of the building, according to the

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However, the news caused controversy, as some community members worried about the implications of Price Tower becoming a for-profit enterprise. Others wondered if Copper Tree, which was formed only a year earlier, had the expertise to renovate a historical building. Meanwhile, some community members were alarmed by Cynthia Blanchard’s ties to HeraSoft, a cryptocurrency company helmed by her husband, Anthem Blanchard. Just two months after Copper Tree’s purchase of Price Tower, Anthem claimed the company was financially insolvent in court, according to the

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Frank Lloyd Wright with a model of Price Tower

Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images

Despite promises from the new owners to revitalize the building through new development, including upscale restaurants, nothing permanent materialized. Instead, the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise estimated that the debt ballooned to $2 million.

To keep the building afloat, Copper Tree allegedly began selling off some of the building’s furniture and artifacts, which are protected through an easement donated to the

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in 2011 by the Price Tower Arts Center as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site nomination. The easement legally prohibits removing these items from the site, and the conservancy sought legal recourse to remedy this.

Ultimately, as part of bankruptcy proceedings, the building went to the auction block. “[The opportunity to bid] went out to 900 people, and we were the only ones that turned a bid in,” Snyder tells AD. “So we were either really smart, or not that smart. But I think about that building when I go to sleep at night. It’s so cool. It’s truly one-of-a-kind.”

“I was worried my dad would go into a five-year depression if we didn’t get the building,” Snyder-Amatucci jokes.

They plan to spend $10 million over two years to transform the building into a mixed-use development featuring both apartments and a hotel, with long-term plans to revive the Copper Bar located on an upper floor as a food and beverage site in some form.

Since the building has stood vacant for the past year, the McFarlin Group discovered significant damage when they finally gained access: two feet of water had flooded the basement because the pumps failed after the building’s electricity was shut off the previous December. Other leaks were found on the upper floors.

However, the Snyder family remains confident in their decision to purchase the tower. They plan to lean on their past experience in both restoring historic buildings and operating hotels. The Snyder family previously purchased the Mayo Hotel, a historic art deco building in Tulsa, after it had been vacant for thirty years. Following a $42 million renovation spearheaded by Snyder, it reopened in 2009, and the family operates it to this day through umbrella company Brickhugger LLC. In 2017, Brickhugger LLC purchased the Triangle Building in downtown Pawhuska, Oklahoma, which resembles the Flatiron Building in New York, and converted it into a hotel. Brickhugger LLC will also operate Price Tower.

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Price Tower’s fate remain uncertain.

Photo: Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images

After receiving the keys to Price Tower, Snyder immediately began pumping the water out of the basement and had power restored less than three days later. Now the team can begin tackling ******* projects: adding a sprinkler system to get the building up to fire code, evaluating the aged water pipes, and modernizing the elevator mechanics, while keeping to Wright’s original vision.

As Wright’s only completed skyscraper, Price Tower holds an important place among the architect’s work. Built in 1956, the iconic building showcases how Wright drew inspiration from the natural world. Indeed, the architect based the design on a tree, imagining a trunk formed by the central elevator shafts and the green copper panels and sun louvers on the exterior forming the leaves.

In fact, Wright called the building “the tree that escaped the crowded forest,” as it was originally intended for New York City but was ultimately built on the Oklahoma prairie. Designed in the late 1920s, the structure was planned as four apartment towers in the Big Apple, but construction never started due to the Great Depression. When the H.C. Price Company, an oil and gas company, contracted Wright to build its headquarters in Bartlesville in 1953, he revisited those 1920 designs, changing them to a single tower.

The Snyder family say they understand the responsibility they have taken on. “It’s not a renovation, it’s a restoration,” Snyder says. Whenever possible, they aim to preserve the building’s original features, including restoring and retaining the historic windows. Even when elements, such as doors that have to be replaced with fire-safe options, can’t be reused for their original purpose, they plan to repurpose them in new ways, like turning them into a striking headboard.

“We’ve appreciated getting to know the McFarlin team over the last several months, and our conversations have been very positive. We are reassured by their respect for Price Tower’s historic significance and their commitment to honoring our preservation easement,” the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy shared in a statement. “Their creative approach to the reuse of buildings, and the knowledge they have of the regional market, provide a strong foundation for revitalizing this treasured landmark. We are grateful that they are taking on this challenge, and we stand ready to support them with expertise and knowledge as they work to stabilize and preserve the building.”

Snyder-Amatucci emphasized that their team was in it for the long haul, with no plans to sell Price Tower when the restoration project is complete. “We want to make sure that everything we do is quality and done properly because…we’re going to be the ones ensuring that it’s a great experience and that it’s healthy for years.”

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