Reservoir Hill Home Values

[Steve]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Or collapsing into the mines.[] Just kidding.

Steve, what kind of prices are the ones you mentioned on the market now? I drove through there yesterday (my mom lives behind the school) and saw a couple flat tops. On 27th one of the more conventionals is listed at $129,900 for 3/2/2 brick with fireplace.

Well I am just making educated guesses here, as I am no realtor and don't actively follow the real estate markets in my part of town.  The modern design Honn/Grubb homes in Lortondale and Lortondale 2nd (circa 1954-1956) have limited demand, that is they don't appeal to the average taste of the "unwashed masses." Demand hasn't put a lot of upward pressure on prices, as of yet.  We also have more than our fair share of "fixer uppers" and neglected properties, which tend to depress overall home values.  Bad past remodelling and alterations that destroy the original modern design esthetic such as altering roof pitch and destroying the glass window walls also can destroy our home's values, and there are plenty examples of that too.  The house next door to me had all the windows removed and replaced with tiny divided light units; that home sat on the market for over 2 years and never sold, even after lowering the price to $89,000.  I think the owner momentarily gave up on selling and relatives currently occupy the house.  There are a lot of different factors affecting the value of these unique homes.

Historically, I would say the value of a Lortondale modern home has doubled about every 20 years.  My house, a 1954 3 bdrm, 2 bath, 2 car garage, 1500 sq. ft. model,located on 26th St. between Yale & Darlington, originally sold to the first owners for $16,500 in Dec. 1954.  So around 1974, the market value would have been around $33,000.  The garage was converted to living space with additional 1/2 bath in the 1960's, bringing living area to about 1,950 sq. ft.  I purchased the house in April 1987 for $53,000.  Today, I would expect to sell my house for around $115,000 after some normal improvements (paint, new roof).  My house has most all original windows, flooring, and cabinetry still intact, the features that make these homes so cool and desireable to modern-design fans.  And it has been fairly well maintained over the years and not been allowed to deteriorate beyond normal wear and age.

I have seen a modern Lortondale home listed for as high as $135,000, but I don't know if it sold at that price, and it had been extensively altered.  Personally, I think market values here are highly undervalued, especially for the better maintained homes with original modern features intact.  Lots are generous by today's standards; my lot is about 8,400 sq. ft., average for Lortondale.  Lortondale 2nd lots are smaller.  Some of the lots around the Lortondale pool are upwards of 16,000 sq. ft., due to the curvature of the street and the properties abutting to the north.

When the new Lortondale Historic District receives placement on the National Historic Register, hopefully by this fall or early 2009, that will only encourage restoration/preservation and have a positive effect on home values.

All of my comments are regarding the modern architecture Honn/Grubb homes, not the more conventional ranch style homes that can also be found in Lortondale 2nd.

[waterboy]

Thanks, Steve. Where exactly does Lortondale 2 start? i would corroborate your 1974 pricing as I bought my first home in nearby Grandview Manor that year. We sat across from some moderns on 27th pl. and paid $30K. At that time the moderns were several thousand less. My mom's home has had to have piering done but hers sits on a foundation. I assume you're on a slab. Have you seen a lot of settling?

[Steve]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Thanks, Steve. Where exactly does Lortondale 2 start? i would corroborate your 1974 pricing as I bought my first home in nearby Grandview Manor that year. We sat across from some moderns on 27th pl. and paid $30K. At that time the moderns were several thousand less. My mom's home has had to have piering done but hers sits on a foundation. I assume you're on a slab. Have you seen a lot of settling?

Lortondale is from 26th St. to 27th Pl., Yale to Darlington; Lortondale 2nd is the same north/south, from Darlington to Hudson.

Mine is on a slab, as all modern Honn/Grubb homes in Lortondale are, HVAC ducting in the slab.  I have had some normal settling that all slab foundation houses in Tulsa will experience, after all my house is 54 years old, but nothing beyond normal and things have not changed significantly in the past 21 years I have owned the place.  I have never had a problem with water in the inground ducts, and have never had to have any foundation work done.  Some of my fellow homeowners have not been so lucky, but I don't think the Lortondale neighborhoods have been any worse off than any other subdivision in Tulsa with slab-on-grade homes.

[Steve]

quote:Originally posted by Steve

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Thanks, Steve. Where exactly does Lortondale 2 start? i would corroborate your 1974 pricing as I bought my first home in nearby Grandview Manor that year. We sat across from some moderns on 27th pl. and paid $30K. At that time the moderns were several thousand less. My mom's home has had to have piering done but hers sits on a foundation. I assume you're on a slab. Have you seen a lot of settling?

Lortondale is from 26th St. to 27th Pl., Yale to Darlington; Lortondale 2nd is the same north/south, from Darlington to Hudson.

Mine is on a slab, as all modern Honn/Grubb homes in Lortondale are, HVAC ducting in the slab.  I have had some normal settling that all slab foundation houses in Tulsa will experience, after all my house is 54 years old, but nothing beyond normal and things have not changed significantly in the past 21 years I have owned the place.  I have never had a problem with water in the inground ducts, and have never had to have any foundation work done.  Some of my fellow homeowners have not been so lucky, but I don't think the Lortondale neighborhoods have been any worse off than any other subdivision in Tulsa with slab-on-grade homes.

The one major problem that most all early Lortondale homes faced was with the water supply lines.  When construction started in 1954, there was still a major copper shortage due to the lingering effects of the Korean War; consequently, builder Grubb used galvanized steel water lines, buried in the slab.  New, unproven construction in 1954.  It wasn't long before the steel lines corroded and slab leaks were a big problem.  I have heard that there was a class-action lawsuit between Lortondale owners and Grubb as a consequence.  Nearly 98% or more of the homes have been retrofitted with copper supply lines, cleverly hidden through closets and false ceiling beams, to correct the problem.  Mine was done this way, but long before I bought the house so I never had to deal with that.  If I ever have a water supply leak, pinpointing the source will be a no-brainer!

Trivia:  Grandview Manor was originally supposed to be the Lortondale 3rd addition.  Builder Howard Grubb bought 4 40-acre tracts of land from Meadowbrook Country Club and intended to build 540 modern homes around 4 private neighborhood pools: Lortondale, 2nd, 3rd & 4th.  A big major modern U.S. housing development.  By the time Lortondale 2nd was about 2/3 complete in mid 1956, demand for the modern style had basically dried up in Tulsa and he abandonded the designs and built more conventional ranch houses.  Thus what was to be Lortondale 3rd from 27th Pl. south to 31st street, Yale to Darlington, became Grandview Manor.  Lortondale 4th was to be directly east on the other side of Darlington.  Lortondale and Lortondale 2nd do have their neighborhood swimming pools as planned, the first of their kind in Tulsa.  Both the original Lortondale Pool at 4941 E 26 St., and the pool in Lortondale 2nd at 27th St. & Hudson (the 5300 Swim Club) are still in operation today after over 50 years!  Both are now closed for the season.  The pools planned for Lortondale 3 & 4 were never built.

At 31st & Yale, where the cloverleaf on-ramp is to the westbound BA XWay, was the concrete mixing plant built to process concrete for the Lortondale homes' slab foundations.  At the present site of Hoover Elementary School was builder Grubb's carpentry shop, where they built and milled all the interior mahogany millwork and custom cabinetry for Lortondale homes.  Hoover Elementary school is built upon landfill from leftover millwaste from the Lortondale subdivisions.  The modern Lortondale subdivisions were a joint venture of builder Howard Grubb/architect Donald Honn, McMichael Concrete Company, and the Dale Carter Lumber Company.  Lortondale modern homes were constructed to very high standards of the day: all solid heartwood framing lumber with no knots, asian mahogany door, window, and interior trim, kitchen and bath cabinetry of mahogany, oak wood block flooring, and standard central air conditioning, a first for any tract home development in the U.S.  The architecture may not be to everyone's taste, but I have viewed several homes that have been stripped down to bare framing for reconstruction, and the build quality and materials used back in '54 were first rate, materials that you rarely find today at any price.  These homes were built to last.

I apologize for this thread turning from Reservior Hill to Lortondale history, mainly my fault.  So sue me...

[juliemckowen]

Hey midtown people- what is the deal with all the tall pink flowers that everyone has in their yards? There are lots of them in Woodard Park too that you can see from Peoria. They must be fake b/c they are all the same. Why do people have these?

[waterboy]

Reservoir Hill is not exactly Mid-Town.

[carltonplace]

quote:Originally posted by juliemckowen

Hey midtown people- what is the deal with all the tall pink flowers that everyone has in their yards? There are lots of them in Woodard Park too that you can see from Peoria. They must be fake b/c they are all the same. Why do people have these?

I've heard people refer to those as "tube rose" but I think its name is Amaryllis belladonna. It blooms late July for a couple of weeks.

Wikipedia Entry

[jne]

quote:Originally posted by carltonplace

quote:Originally posted by juliemckowen

Hey midtown people- what is the deal with all the tall pink flowers that everyone has in their yards? There are lots of them in Woodard Park too that you can see from Peoria. They must be fake b/c they are all the same. Why do people have these?

I've heard people refer to those as "tube rose" but I think its name is Amaryllis belladonna. It blooms late July for a couple of weeks.

Wikipedia Entry

So did these things suddenly get popular this season?  They are everywhere!

[Bumby]

Naked Ladies have been around a long time.  They take very little care and put on quite a show.  Mine are over 25 years old and delight me every year.  The initial foliage comes up in the spring, dies completely back and then a few months later these pink beauties show up almost overnight!

I'm sure there's quite a few on Reservoir Hill!

[TURobY]

I wondered about those myself. I was driving back home one evening and noticed them tucked away all over Renaissance. I figured I was just out of the loop...

[Hometown]

Yeh, I saw some pink ladies in my neighbor's yard this morning and a bunch of them somewhere else on the way down the Hill.  Very lovely.

This is one of those organic threads that starts out over there and ends up somewhere out there.  Kind of organic like conversation.

Since Conan hasn't seen fit to share some Crosbie Heights prices, I'm guessing he's probably handed over some earnest money on something in Crosbie Heights.  Or wants to.

Steve thanks for the update on Lortondale real estate.  Always interesting.  One of the best values in Tulsa.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by Hometown

Yeh, I saw some pink ladies in my neighbor's yard this morning and a bunch of them somewhere else on the way down the Hill.  Very lovely.

This is one of those organic threads that starts out over there and ends up somewhere out there.  Kind of organic like conversation.

Since Conan hasn't seen fit to share some Crosbie Heights prices, I'm guessing he's probably handed over some earnest money on something in Crosbie Heights.  Or wants to.

Steve thanks for the update on Lortondale real estate.  Always interesting.  One of the best values in Tulsa.

Heh, actually, I won't be handing over any large sums of money this month, except to the OU bursar's office.

I need to talk to one of my realtor friends to get an update from MLS on what is available and for how much right now.

[rwarn17588]

quote:Originally posted by Hometown

Yeh, I saw some pink ladies in my neighbor's yard this morning and a bunch of them somewhere else on the way down the Hill.  Very lovely.

This is one of those organic threads that starts out over there and ends up somewhere out there.  Kind of organic like conversation.

They're all over Red Fork right now. I figure the recent breaking of the heat wave, along with a bit of rain, made them pop up almost overnight.

I'm sure my honeybees liked them.

[SXSW]

I am very interested in this area and have been trying to learn more about it.  I notice a lot of vacant lots around Fairview between Boulder and Cincinnati on the east edge of Brady Heights, why were those homes torn down?  That area seems ripe for new houses now, especially as the Brady district revitalizes.  The homes along Denver and Cheyenne seem nice but get more rundown as you head east and north.  If you were looking at a house in this area what would be the pros and cons?

[MichaelBates]

I am very interested in this area and have been trying to learn more about it.  I notice a lot of vacant lots around Fairview between Boulder and Cincinnati on the east edge of Brady Heights, why were those homes torn down?  That area seems ripe for new houses now, especially as the Brady district revitalizes. 

The area of which you speak was cleared by TDA to meet the city's commitment to provide 200 acres for the University Center at Tulsa campus.

When the legislature authorized the UCAT campus in the early '80s, the city looked at Cherokee Industrial Park as one possibility, but settled on the Greenwood urban renewal area. That area had been homes and retail, which were rebuilt after the 1921 riot, but then cleared by the City in the early '70s for the "Model Cities" urban renewal program.

(A search of the Daily Oklahoman online archives -- via TulsaLibrary.org -- for "University Center at Tulsa" will turn up a lot of this history.)

The Greenwood tract was only 80 acres, so the city opted to acquire and clear the area to the west to meet the 200 acre requirement. Many of the homes, particularly those on the higher parts of the hill, were of the same vintage and style as those you'd find in Brady Heights. The area between Brady Heights and Detroit Ave., by the way, was not part of the Greenwood District -- Detroit was the dividing line between black and white communities.