In a previous post, I wrote that my grandmother bought this house in the late 1960s, then sold it several years later. It changed hands several times and is now a bed and breakfast called The Vintage Inn. I made the trip to Oklahoma, in part, to stay there once again.
Perhaps a little more house-history is in order now. The home at 801 Flynn Street, Alva, Oklahoma, was built in 1906 by the influential local businessman George Washington Crowell.
+crowell.jpg)
On pages 1509-1510 of Volume IV of A Standard History of Oklahoma (1916) Joseph B. Thoburn, we find a little background on the man who was the original owner of the house.
"George W. Crowell. Among those men of dynamic force
and fine constructive powers who have been foremost in the furtherance of the
civic and industrial development and progress of Woods County, Oklahoma, a
place of exceptional prominence and distinction must be accorded to the
sterling citizen and representative man of affairs whose name initiates this
paragraph. Mr. Crowell is vice president of the First National Bank of Alva,
the county seat of Woods County, was the founder of the firm of Crowell
Brothers, engaged in dealing in lumber and grain; and his extraneous capitalistic
interests are likewise of broad scope and importance, as shown by his being
president of the Panhandle Grain Company of Amarillo, Texas, and president and treasurer
of the Centennial Coal Company of Denver, Colorado."
.jpg) |
| Crowell Bros. Grain Elevator (photo found in public documents at Ancestry.com) |
George Crowell was born in North Carolina in 1862, and moved to Kansas in 1879. He and his brother David owned a lumber company. The book continues:
"The firm now
maintains a series of well equipped lumber yards, at different points in Kansas
and Oklahoma and the business has expanded to large and substantial proportions
under the careful, progressive and honorable management of the enterprising proprietors.
"In
1893 Mr. Crowell became one of the large concourse of prospective settlers who
participated in the run into the famous Cherokee Strip, or Outlet, of Oklahoma,
at the time it was thrown open to settlement. He established his residence at
Alva, the present thriving little metropolis and judicial center of Woods
County, and the governor of Oklahoma Territory appointed him chairman of the
first board of county commissioners of the new county.
"Mr. Crowell thus played
an important part in formulating the system of government for the county and
also was influential in the progressive movements made by the board for the
furtherance of the best interests of the ambitious county and its people. Mr. Crowell
has otherwise given effective service in behalf of the public, and especially
through his several years incumbency of the office of member of the city
council of Alva.... In all
things he is to be designated as a loyal, progressive and public-spirited
citizen as well as a straightforward, alert and substantial business man…."
A page on Flickr.com describes the architectural style of the house as "...evocative
of the Prairie Style as found in Oklahoma. It has a steeply pitched hip roof,
covered with ceramic tile roofing. The center entry bay is topped by a dormer
capped with a unique double-hipped roof. Below the dormer is a set of five
windows, three in the center are closely spaced, flanked at a short distance
with another on each side. Each of these windows has a transom. A stone
beltcourse is set into the wall at the height of the second-story windows. The
main entry porch features piers that extend past the roofline of the porch;
these piers were probably originally terminated by urns. This was a common
style found in other Prairie-style homes of the 1920s, a style first
popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright. The porch piers are flanked by columns, and
the style of the port is mirrored in the style of the east-facing sunroom. A
large porch, open other than over the entry, provides a strong visual base for
this large home."
The Okie Legacy website describes the origins of the house: "As to George's big house on 8th & Flynn Ave., in Alva, Oklahoma, legend has it Crowell wanted to build the biggest house in Alva so he constructed the house in 1906 and succeeded for about a year, until another man built a slightly larger house on the west side of town.
"Crowell brought in an Italian artist, who was charged with scrolling in gold leaf on the walls and ceilings on the first floor and up the stairs. He also carved rail posts and the glass doors leading into the house. All the wood and the tile roofing for the house was shipped in from Kansas."
"Crowell brought in an Italian artist, who was charged with scrolling in gold leaf on the walls and ceilings on the first floor and up the stairs. He also carved rail posts and the glass doors leading into the house. All the wood and the tile roofing for the house was shipped in from Kansas."
 |
| Photo postcard of the "Geo. Crowell Residence, Alva, Okla." |
George Crowell's first wife died in 1911, but A Standard History of Oklahoma notes: "On the 1st of October, 1913, Mr. Crowell contracted a second marriage, by his union with Mae Wilcox, who was born at Neosho, Missouri, on the 6th of April, 1884, and who is the popular chatelaine of their pleasant and hospitable home in Alva."
Pleasant and hospitable.
I went up the steps to the front door, noting that the leaded glass windows were still in place. They were beautiful from the outside...
And even more so from the inside, with their little rainbows of light.
If you were going to build a three-story house like the one at 801 Flynn, it would help to be in the lumber business. This slightly smudged photograph of my grandmother's from about 1970 shows the entry hall and staircase, crafted of solid oak, as I remembered it.
Last Tuesday afternoon, I walked slowly around the entry hall, camera at the ready.
Even though the paint colors are different and a vintage tin ceiling has been added, the wooden details are still there and in excellent condition.
The house was quiet. I walked up the stairs and, when I got to the top, rested my hand on the oak.
"Hello, my old friend," I said. The house spent the next couple of days responding.
To be continued....
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Information on The Vintage Inn may be found here:
http://www.bnbfinder.com/Oklahoma/Alva/Bed-and-Breakfast/Listing/21215/Vintage_Inn_Bed_and_Breakfast
The Okie Legacy website story on the Crowell House is here:
And a story about George Crowell's family is here:
The Flickr site with the description and a photo of the Crowell mansion (among many interesting pictures of Oklahoma landmarks) is here:
A Standard History of Oklahoma, Vol. IV, is available online:
The website for Ponca City, Oklahoma, tells more about the Cherokee Strip land run of 1893: http://www.poncacity.com/cherokee_strip.htm
________________________________________________________________
This story is
one in a series on the historic red brick house at 801 Flynn in Alva,
Oklahoma. This Prairie-style mansion was
built in 1906 by local businessman George W. Crowell.
My
grandmother bought it from his heirs in 1968, and lived there for several
years.
The house has
changed hands several times since then; it’s now The Vintage Inn, a
bed-and-breakfast.
I went back to visit in October 2013. All the blog posts I wrote on the visit are collected here: http://estatesalechronicles.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-historic-house-at-801-flynn-alva.html
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