Rejuvenated Tulsa

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Modernista enjoy a Modern Tulsa
home tour through Lortondale in 2009.
Tulsa has many beautiful historic neighborhoods. Over the years we've seen some of them severely decline, but fortunately many returned to become more vibrant than ever.

One neighborhood that came close to the brink was Lortondale. The resurgence of this svelte subdivision is documented in a recent article in Tulsa People (see link below).

Lortondale is our city's largest concentration of Mid-Century Modern homes. Built in the mid-Fifties the neighborhood was a showplace for high-tech, postwar living. But the suburban flight of the Seventies and Eighties were not kind to the unique neighborhood.

As American tastes began to favor larger homes the "flat tops" of Lortondale were increasingly enlisted for rental duty. The abuse of careless tenants took its toll. But the worst abuse came from careless landlords attempting to make repairs as cheaply as possible. One of the most visible abuses involves modifying the roofline to allow the installation of conventional asphalt shingles. The practice is known as a "pop top" and it is the architectural equivalent of blasphemy.

Fortunately many of these homes survived relatively intact. You can read more about the revival of this and other Tulsa neighborhoods here...

Comeback Pioneers from Tulsa People magazine




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