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Kennedy Mansion B&BA while back I discussed Cedar Rock Inn, an excellent example of adaptive reuse of an aged building. The Kennedy Mansion Bed & Breakfast is a second one. The home was built in 1925, by Dr. Samuel Kennedy, one of Tulsa’s first doctors. When he married Agnes Lombard, an Osage Indian, he acquired thousands of acres of land in what is now Osage County.

A few years ago the house was for sale and in danger of being torn down. A couple from France rescued the house and turned it into a warm, thriving bed and breakfast. Darell Christopher was returning home, having been raised in Tulsa. Francoise, his wife and French chef, was making a leap of faith to come all the way to Oklahoma.

Kennedy Mansion B&B - FireplaceThe Christophers lovingly restored the house to its original beauty, filling it with period antiques. My favorite features are the numerous, original fireplaces. Two of them are located in the guest bedrooms. An outdoor garden complete with pool, sunken garden and loggia has also been restored and is currently the site of many weddings and other outside celebrations.

The Kennedy Mansion was originally built to house an early Tulsa family and it continues to bring joy to a new family and to its many guests as a prime example of adaptive reuse, restoration and recycling of materials.

What a great place to visit and get away, but not too far, from the city life in Tulsa.

Be sure to check back for another installment of my adventures in Tulsa’s past old vintage homes and buildings.

Written by Peggy Pianalto, Tulsa FAN, retired Postal employee and a Tulsa Master Recycler.

Kennedy Mansion B&B - Bathroom Kennedy Mansion B&B - Stairs Kennedy Mansion B&B - Outside

Since 1970 we have addressed many of the industrial pollution issues to clean up our air and water. President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency and Congress, starting with the Council on Environmental Quality, passed laws to clean up our act. The Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act were very effective at addressing industrial large point source pollution.

Environmentally, we are still in a race to the bottom.

The solutions we made in the 1970’s won’t address the issues we face today. In 1970, 85% of the water pollution in the country was due to industrial point-source discharges. Only 15% were urban non-point sources- the runoff from city streets, suburban lawns, and rural and farm areas.

We have made little progress on urban pollution. The EPA’s latest estimate is that the percentage impact on receiving waters is just the opposite of that in 1970: 15% of the problem is industrial sources, and 85% is urban sources.

Just as we did over the last 4 decades, let’s look for ways to reduce our urban pollution. Sustainable development is in everyone’s best interest, especially the future generations. Let’s stop reducing the amount of green space and not create unnecessary stormwater run-off. Call your city councilor and let him know that you don’t want Tulsa polluting our waterways. Give the Earth a birthday present, can do something small to be part of a big solution.

The following is a letter from Tulsa builder/developer Jamie Jameson with his thoughts about the latest TMAPC public hearing of the PlaniTulsa comprehensive plan for Tulsa.  PreserveMidtown agrees with his assessment of this meeting.  Please read this letter and then write your own letter to TMAPC to show your thoughts about this plan.  See plan at and make comments here www.planitulsa.org There will be a further TMAPC Hearing on March 23 (I’m not sure of the time – you can find this at incog.org). I hope very much you can plan to attend and speak at this – I recommend checking the PlaniTulsa web site to check in to speak, asap.

I will be [unavailable for the March 23 meeting]. I delayed [an event] so that I could be present at and speak at yesterday’s meeting, which I believed would be the last such hearing. As it was, so many people spoke – at length and to good purpose – that I didn’t get to speak. It was a well-run hearing in that many people had their say and the Commissioners took time to engage closely with speakers in detail. The Commissioners handled it pretty well, particularly Bill Leighty and Liz Wright who both asked incisive questions. All the fog of misinformation circulated in recent days evaporated after a series of close questioning by BIll Leighty at the very outset of the hearing. I think it is imperative that the official voice of the Pearl District is heard, from the President at the next hearing. Christine [Booth] did very well, at short notice at the first hearing, and I spoke at that meeting too. We both sat through yesterday’s 3.5 hour hearing, when we could have been doing our day jobs. We now need others to take up the slack.

It’s starkly clear that the homebuilders, realtors and the Chamber, all of whom showed up to complain yesterday, are mounting a serious effort to torpedo key features of PLANiTULSA. They give the impression of having lain in wait for two years.

It looks as if the strategy is to drag out, obfuscate, confuse, conflate, alienate, discredit and ultimately emasculate the Plan to suit a myopic view of their own narrow interests, at the expense of Tulsa and Tulsans. A tactic in this is (i) to show up at the tail-end of the process when normal people have made their contribution to the process, and are at their day jobs, (ii) to gradually wear everyone else out to a point where no one else shows up except them, and (iii) to connive and lobby behind closed doors. They are now variously asking for a 60 or more days delay for their ‘members’ to consider PLANiTULSA’s 200 pages. Never mind that everyone else has already read it. Perhaps – being charitable – they’re just slow readers.

The Chamber, of which I am a long-time and slightly embarrassed member in particular made itself look hopelessly out of touch: it sent a new and floundering employee along to ask for a delay with the flimsiest of rationales. It seemed pretty clear that it’s been ‘got at’ by the Home Builders, who merely succeeded in making the Chamber look stupid – to the extent that the audience laughed at the Chamber’s first utterances. Their representative left early. ‘Mission accomplished’. Engagement Over.

It seems to have escaped these organizations’ notice that their respective, individual members are also Tulsans, who have had the opportunity to engage at any point in the last two years with PLANiTULSA. In fact many individual members such as I have actually done so. I am hoping that the Commissioners, who are an intelligent group of mature people, see through this for the sham – and shame – that it is.

While these respective groups have every right – and indeed duty – to speak at hearings, their seemingly calculated absence from the PLANiTULSA discussion process until the last minute is at best negligent, and at worst cynical, irresponsible and reprehensible. Up to 6,000 other Tulsans like them spent more than two years working on this project, as individuals. Now these organizations think they can come in and over-ride it at the last minute with a torrent of proposed corrections (most of which have actually been accommodated – almost to a fault – by the PLANiTULSA team).

An inspired, progressive, constructive, mature, public process is threatening to turn into a tedious yet predictable struggle of unimaginative, vested interests wishing to preserve a crumbling status quo (characterized by back-room deals, with scant regard to the real world) versus Tulsa’s residents and the true interests of Tulsa and its economic and fiscal viability.

It’s enough to make me want to move to Portland, along with everyone else under 30: the vocabulary there is about progress, adaptation to a radically changing world, innovation, new ideas. Our public policies here in contrast seem orientated around protecting the interests and personal feelings of a bunch of good ole boys whose time has… gone. The intellectual and policy high ground has transferred to the neighborhoods and to hitherto sidelined planners. Philanthropists and tax-payers meanwhile pay for the intellectual deficit – in hard cash.

So I trust you and other neighborhoods will show up and speak on March 23. Whilst the critics of PLANiTULSA were heavily out-numbered yesterday some opponents still haven’t spoken, and will take up their right to do so at the next – and, I trust, final – hearing.

This is, sadly, a fight that in my view will determine whether Tulsa has much of a future.

I went to the well attended PlaniTulsa TMAPC hearing last Tuesday and heard inner-city real estate developer, home builder and Tulsa resident Jamie Jameson speak about his enthusiastic support for the PlaniTulsa plan approval.  He was one of many there who gave strong support for this plan with the message that our current out-of-date comprehensive plan does NOT work.  If we want Tulsa to be the progressive, vital city it was once, we need PlaniTulsa. Please follow this link to Mr. Jameson’s letter.

PlaniTulsa TMAPC advocacy from Jamie Jamieson

I urge everyone who has seen or experienced changes to their neighborhoods that they wish were not there, or want changes that you have been left out of to take this last chance, on Wednesday, March 10 at 1:30 pm at TMAPC meeting on the 2nd floor of City Hall, to speak up for this new plan that will lead Tulsa into a bright future for all its citizens.

DO NOT ASSUME that this plan will move forward exactly as the citizens of Tulsa have requested. Special interest groups will make certain their opinion is considered in the adoption of PlaniTulsa.  Do not let their influence stop the progress Tulsa needs so desperately. Send an email to Theron Warlick, Project Manager, twarlick@cityoftusa.org and let the Planning Commisssion know that you want this PlaniTulsa   Plan.

Thank you,

Barbara VanHanken

Co-founder of PreserveMidtown

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