OUR HISTORY

Located just south of downtown Tulsa and close to the Arkansas River, The McFarlin Mansion was built in 1918 by Robert M. McFarlin with architectural excellence and fine craftsmanship.   Nestled among large trees, the property has an 8500 square foot main house and two carriage houses, along with a pool that was once billed as the largest in the southwest.  Constructed in the Prairie Italian Renaissance style, the mansion was built of reinforced concrete column and beam construction with clay block interior walls with a full-width stone portico over the entrance supported by six Doric columns. The east elevation features stone lintels and keystones above the ground floor windows and doors. The red tiled hip roof on this three-story brown brick home has copper gutters and downspouts.

Robert McFarlin was one of Tulsa’s leading businessmen and civic leaders.  Along with his nephew James A. Chapman, they formed the McMan Oil Company and had one of the most successful operations in the Glenn Pool oil field.  In 1910, McFarlin, with Harry Sinclair and other oil men, organized the Exchange National Bank of Tulsa, now the Bank of Oklahoma.  His generous philanthropic gifts include the endowment and the McFarlin Library on the University of Tulsa campus, McFarlin Auditorium at Southern Methodist University, and the McFarlin Memorial United Methodist Church in Norman, Oklahoma.