Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower to Close and Go up for Auction

Wright's tower was built in 1956 for Harold Price as the corporate headquarters of his eponymous oil company. Wright designed Price Tower to be treelike, with asymmetrical floor plates cantilevered from a concrete core and glass facades with copper “leaves” hung from the slab edges. Price occupied the tower until moving the company to Dallas in 1981, when the building was sold to Phillips Petroleum, who used it for storage. Phillips donated the building, in 2000, to the nonprofit Price Tower Arts Center, who turned it into a mixed-use tower with museum, inn, restaurant, shop, and office tenants. 

Finding it hard to finance operations and faced with $600,000 in debt, the nonprofit PTAC sold the tower to Copper Tree Group, led by Anthem and Cynthia Blanchard, in March 2023 for a token fee of $10. The new owner assumed the debt and promised to invest $10 million to “bring the building back to its former glory.” But as of today, 18 months later, the debt has increased to $2 million and the renovations have not been carried out.

News broke earlier this month that the Blanchards have laid off inn employees, evicted tenants, and sold off Wright-designed furnishings in the building ahead of the September 1 closing, which is happening since the Blanchards were unable to find a buyer for the landmark building. In regard to the sale of furnishings, which include chairs and tables but also architectural copper relief panels and other items, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy contends they violate a preservation easement in place for the building and is taking legal action.

The latest news indicates Price Tower will be placed on the Ten-X Commercial Real Estate Auction Platform tomorrow, with the public auction scheduled to take place from October 7–9. The auction will not include the art collection inside the building; those items would be part of "Phase 2 of the new ownership transition,” per a statement from the Blanchards. The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy said it does not know anything about the sale but that it should have been notified about per the easement, much like the PTAC did when it sold the building last year.