Originally intended to grace Manhattan’s skyline, the 19-story, 221-foot Price Tower would be dwarfed by the New York City high rises of today. But the sole skyscraper completed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, built in 1956, positively looms above Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
The edifice, which Wright called a “tree that escaped the crowded forest,” served as the headquarters of the H. C. Price Company until 1985, when the Price Tower Arts Center took residence and drew up a plan for refurbishment, complete with the hotel and restaurant it unveiled last year.

The restaurant, Copper, which spans the 15th and 16th floors, looks out picture windows upon endless prairie, and the unbounded quality of the landscape has a meditative quality that will keep you at the bar for hours.

Spending a night at the Inn at Price Tower, floors 7 through 13, is like staying in a Wright designed home—a rare treat, since few of those are open to the public. Each room features tall, regal furnishings and Tibetan and Indian-inspired textiles. The restaurant and hotel help subsidize the Arts Center, which exhibits works by Wright and others on the first two and top three floors.

But there will be room for much more now that Pritzker Prize–winning architect Zaha Hadid is wrapping a 50,000-square-foot museum around the Tower’s base. Hadid is known for her angular Centre for Contemporary Arts in Rome, as well as the boxy volumes of the Cincinnati Art Museum. Her latest project may be the most impressive amalgam of old and new since Vincent Foster put a glass cap on the British Museum. Construction is anticipated to begin in 2006. See it now as Wright intended—and plan for another trip in four years.

The gallery and store are open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 12:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Guided tours are offered Tuesday through Saturday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. The cost is $8 for adults and $5 for seniors and children 16 and under. Gallery admission is $4 for adults and $3 for seniors (children under 16 get in free).