A protracted kerfuffle over the way forward for the architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s solely skyscraper has lastly come to an finish. Earlier this week, a choose ordered that the Worth Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, be bought to the McFarlin Constructing firm, which specialises in revitalising historic properties within the area. The choice follows months of squabbling, duelling lawsuits and what seems to be the straw that broke the camel’s again—the homeowners ignoring the identical choose’s court docket order to show the utilities again on within the historic, albeit empty, constructing threatened by freezing temperatures.
The ultimate value of the sale, $1.4m, had been initially agreed upon in Might 2024 by McFarlin and Copper Tree, an organization run by the native couple Cynthia and Anthem Blanchard, who had bought the skyscraper in March 2023. Nevertheless, it seems that the Blanchards reneged on the settlement, itemizing the constructing for public sale in 2024 with a minimal bid of $600,000—the tower was doubtless value $6.2m, based on the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise’s Andy Dossett, who has been carefully following this story for the reason that starting. McFarlin filed a lawsuit in opposition to Copper Tree in September 2024.
The Blanchards had purchased the skyscraper for a token sum of $10 below the situation that they pay down its $600,000 debt and make investments $10m in its rehabilitation. They aspired to rework it right into a tech hub, however when their blockchain-based, anti-ransomware and gold-backed crypto firms collapsed, they began promoting the Worth Tower’s Wright-designed furnishings. This went in opposition to an easement held by the architect’s conservancy, which publicly protested. Cynthia Blanchard and Copper Tree filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Frank Lloyd Wright Constructing Conservancy in October 2024, arguing that the easement was void and the conservancy was impeding on the sale of the tower. (The month prior, Anthem Blanchard had been charged with defrauding buyers in one among his firms; the Blanchards allegedly gave them fairness within the Worth Tower to cowl the debt.)
Probably given the Blanchards’ chequered previous, Decide Russell Vaclaw dominated that the $1.4m paid for Worth Tower be held by the court docket as a way to cowl claims, liabilities and money owed associated to the skyscraper. (Andy Dossett, the native journalist, has reported that the constructing’s debt stands at $2m.) Furnishings and different gadgets beforehand bought from the Worth Tower are to be purchased again utilizing cash from the fund. The price of restoring utilities to the constructing may also be deducted. As soon as all that’s addressed, any remaining cash will go to the Blanchards.
Vaclaw known as the Worth Tower a “priceless artefact of paramount significance”, based on Dossett, and stated the constructing had been liable to “laying waste” within the chilly climate. “Let me make it easy,” Vaclaw stated on the listening to. “There’s an excessive amount of at stake right here — there are too many questions on [the owners] to allow them to stroll away with $1.4m immediately, and that is not going to occur.”
Seeing the writing on the wall, Copper Tree declared chapter the next day, claiming to solely have $216 within the financial institution. A listening to on the corporate’s counterclaims in opposition to McFarlin and Wright’s conservancy is scheduled for 11 February.
The Worth Tower has been empty since September, when the remaining tenants have been requested to depart in order that it may very well be auctioned off. Accomplished in 1956 and with a design impressed by a lone tree, the copper-and-concrete skyscraper was listed on the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations in 1974. It grew to become a Nationwide Historic Landmark in 2007.
