The office building finished by the Knights of Pythias

The 1929 plans for this building were ambitious. Oilmen J. M. Gillette and H. C. Tyrrell wanted a three-story office block topped by a ten-story hotel. Then the Great Depression hit, and construction stopped at the third floor. The Knights of Pythias bought the unfinished building in 1931, and they completed it as an office building, renaming it the Pythian Building.

The building features a mix of Modern and Zig Zag Art Deco styles. The facade is decorated with thin vertical piers featuring back-to-back diamond patterns, with areas between the piers covered in cream-colored terra cotta. Spandrels are highlighted with blue terra cotta accents, while the roofline is colored with blue, burnt sienna, and green terra cotta. Ground-floor openings feature Tudor arch designs with bundled-reed steel frames.

Inside, the building reflects these geometric themes. The zig-zag pattern from the exterior repeats on the lobby floor tiles and continues up the walls to a high wainscot. The lobby ceiling features a large lighting fixture with a glass lens designed to resemble a folded plate, which was considered an extremely novel design at the time of construction. Eight tall slender chandeliers with etched glass panels, designed and fabricated by the Empire Chandelier Manufacturing Company of Sand Springs, are also installed in the lobby ceiling.

Today, the building remains a contributing property of the Oil Capital Historic District. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 21, 1982. The building remains a piece of Tulsa's commercial real estate, standing where the hotel never was.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons