Biltmore Hotel (Hotel Oklahoma)*

[Pete]

[category=]Office Buildings[/category]
[category=]Historical[/category]
[category=]Hotels[/category]


[toc]no[/toc]

Address: 228 W. Grand (Sheridan) Built: 1932 Demolished: 1977 Floors: 24; 245 feet Sq. Feet: Acreage: Architect: Hawk & Parr

Information & Latest News

Located on the southeast corner of Grand and Harvey, the Biltmore Hotel was conceived and built during the Great Depression by prominent civic leaders, headed by Charles F. Colcord. Designed by architects Hawk and Parr, by the time it was completed in 1932, the Biltmore was thirty-three stories high and was heralded as the state's tallest building. Financial woes plagued the hotel throughout most of its life and the doors were closed in June 1973. Thousands of citizens turned out to watch as the massive structure was dynamited on October 16, 1977. Many cried openly, knowing that they were witnessing a singular episode of the destruction of historic Oklahoma City. (Edwards and Ottaway, Vanished Splendor 49)

The Oklahoma Biltmore was without a doubt one of the finest hotels in the post-oil boom days of Oklahoma City. There were 619 rooms, each offering free radio, circulating ice water, ceiling fans with up-and-down draft, and later, air conditioning. In 1936 the Biltmore was headquarters for 104 conventions, served 284,604 meals, and had 114,171 guests! H.P. 'Johnnie' Johnson, manager, always said in the advertising, 'On your next visit to the Oil Capital be sure to register at the Biltmore.' 'On October 16, 1977 the Hotel Biltmore was demolished by a team of demolition specialists. Hundreds of low-yield explosives were planted throughout the building so that it would collapse and fall inward into an acceptable area only slightly larger than the hotel's foundation. The purpose was both to break the materials into smaller pieces that would be easily transported away, and to contain the blast and debris within the area, in order to minimize damage to surrounding structures. The razing was recorded by hundreds of camera buffs.' (Edwards and Ottaway, Vanished Splendor II 287-288)

After a $3 million renovation in the mid-1960s [the Biltmore] was renamed the Sheraton-Oklahoma Hotel. I.M. Pei envisioned keeping the hotel, and his sketches and models all showed the tower overlooking the surrounding 'Tivoli Gardens.' By 1973, the Sheraton brand was lost, and the Urban Renewal authority agreed with owners the Biltmore had outlived its useful life. The hotel was one of the largest demolitions in the country to date when it was blown up in 1977 to make way for the 'Myriad Gardens.' (Lackmeyer and Money 36)
Links

Doug Loudenback Article
Steve Lackmeyer Article

Tenants

Gallery

[UnFrSaKn]

Looking East on Sheridan

[ILoveMalania]

aewsome pictures!!!

[UnFrSaKn]

Some of the last photos.

[UnFrSaKn]

Biltmore in relation to the Colcord. Demolition day.

[PhiAlpha]

That's not frustrating at all...

[UnFrSaKn]

Does this help?

[Rover]

Just curious....we're you ever in the Biltmore?

[PhiAlpha]

Does this help?

Referring to the fact that its not there anymore

[drinner-okc]

Guys (& Gals) forgive me for I have sinned. I was young & poor and was offered a job salvaging the furniture from that hotel. We started after the metal scrappers had removed the elevators, and all we had was one cable operated platform to lower the furniture to ground level and then moved it to the Ball Room. We had to walk up to the level we were clearing, then back down for lunch & the end of the day. It took weeks.
At the end, since we had beaten the estimate we were each allowed to take one room of furniture home. I had a suite from above the 20th floor.
Years later I loaned it to a co-worker years who was going thru a divorce. He called & said he was moving an asked if he could move it with him.
Dang, he moved to Detroit! But just recently he found me via the web, we chatted and it is still in his basement...in Detroit.
I still have 2 wooden folding chairs that were part of a card table set. They are still stenciled Biltmore Hotel on the bottom. They were appraised years ago when Antiques Roadshow was at the Myriad. They cared nothing about the local history, just the age & origin.
Also, one of the other workers had a family member that was a building engineer at the Hales Building (in pics) we were able to sneak in
and watch the implosion from the top of the Hales, well inside the circle roped off. I might still have an 8mm movie somewhere.

[Pete]

Guys (& Gals) forgive me for I have sinned. I was young & poor and was offered a job salvaging the furniture from that hotel. We started after the metal scrappers had removed the elevators, and all we had was one cable operated platform to lower the furniture to ground level and then moved it to the Ball Room. We had to walk up to the level we were clearing, then back down for lunch & the end of the day. It took weeks.
At the end, since we had beaten the estimate we were each allowed to take one room of furniture home. I had a suite from above the 20th floor.
Years later I loaned it to a co-worker years who was going thru a divorce. He called & said he was moving an asked if he could move it with him.
Dang, he moved to Detroit! But just recently he found me via the web, we chatted and it is still in his basement...in Detroit.
I still have 2 wooden folding chairs that were part of a card table set. They are still stenciled Biltmore Hotel on the bottom. They were appraised years ago when Antiques Roadshow was at the Myriad. They cared nothing about the local history, just the age & origin.
Also, one of the other workers had a family member that was a building engineer at the Hales Building (in pics) we were able to sneak in
and watch the implosion from the top of the Hales, well inside the circle roped off. I might still have an 8mm movie somewhere.

That's really cool and quite sad at the same time.


Thanks for sharing. Hope you can find the movie.

[bchris02]

This is something I don't understand about the Pei Plan. I can understand the demolition of smaller structures as every city did some of that in the 1960s and 1970s. To demolish such a massive tower though doesn't make any sense.

[Pete]

In the plan Pei presented, the Biltmore was to stay and be part of the gardens.

The owners no longer wanted to deal with it and the Urban Renewal Authority decided to rip it down.

[Urbanized]

Pei's designs actually showed retention of the Biltmore in the park he suggested, which became the MBG. The story I have heard is that the Biltmore proved impossible to renovate due to low ceilings and small room footprints. Of course, similar issues were worked around in the Skirvin renovation. Sometimes "impossible to renovate" is just the favored refrain of those who don't want to find a solution other than demolition.

[Jim Kyle]

Also, it was full of asbestos, not surprising considering when it was built.

[Urbanized]

Dang. Pete beat me to it.

[Pete]

It was just a different time when nobody seemed to care about preserving these old buildings.

The focus was all on new and modern and most these older structures were seen as blocking the way forward.


To be honest, even though I was a teenager when the Biltmore came down, I was much more excited about the proposed new and shiny gardens and Galleria than concerned about history. I only started to feel differently about 20 years later.

[Urbanized]

No question; different time. I don't have specific hard feelings for the people who took these buildings down then; they were doing what they thought was best for the city. With the benefit of hindsight though, we should know better today. Especially after seeing a generation's-worth of quality historic preservation in a number of the few buildings left over. HP can be a powerful force for good and for economic development in a community, but it needs to be purposeful, and needs to continuously work to earn support among the public and private sectors.

[zookeeper]

Its last great days were as a Sheraton Hotel. The manager told several people I knew that Sheraton pulled out due to concerns about the future of downtown with so little momentum. Bookings for convention business was way down. After the Sheraton flag was gone it slid into a dismal state. Of course, Sheraton was back in fairly soon at Century Center.

There's an old Sheraton postcard on eBay now! Vintage Postcards Oklahoma City Sheraton Oklahoma Hotel Has Wear Marks Crease | Heritage Auctions | eBay

[Pete]

Found this rendering of a proposed 'renovation' of the old Biltmore from the 1960's:

[Martin]

oh my goodness, that's hideous. -M

[lasomeday]

That is pretty cool. It would have been pretty cool if it was a new build. I like all the skid marks and the high dive. OKC needs more retro buildings like this. If it was a new build it would have added some architectural depth to our skyline that we don't have.

[OKCisOK4me]

Agnoli sure knows how to make our downtown streets look well traversed!

[Pete]

The 60's were all about re-skinning historic buildings with relatively awful exteriors.

Just such a strong push to 'modernize' everything.

[catch22]

Geez. That's terrible. O_o