The architect who built for the people who built Tulsa

BY CONNIE CRONLEY

Donald McCormick was a young man of 27 when he came to Tulsa in 1925 for one job, but what a job it was. He was sent from a Philadelphia architectural rm to supervise the eld construction of the First Methodist Church — a nine-story, Tudor Gothic Methodist cathedral at West 11th Street and South Boulder Avenue.

e young, oil-booming city was a good t for the recent graduate of Cornell University, so he stayed. He died in 1995 at the age of 97 after a long and proli c career that shaped the city with more than 200 public and private spaces.

McCormick’s public works include Southern Hills Country Club, Cascia Hall Preparatory School, the Federal Court Building and Post O ce (Page Belcher building), Southroads Mall, branch libraries for Tulsa City-County Library and the small masterwork Grace Lutheran Church.

He built mansions for the people who were building Tulsa — bankers, doctors and oil barons including a palatial English Country home for oilman S. C. Canary and an elegant home for pioneering female geologist Constance Eirich. His residential patrons in Wichita, Kansas, included Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries.

With John Duncan Forsyth, in an architectural partnership brokered by Waite Phillips, he made history with two landmark builds: a residence and a country club. e home for banker-oilman R. Otis McClintock (1932) is a Country French mansion set in an urban forest at the northwest corner of East 41st Street and South Lewis Avenue. Local architecture historian and author John Brooks Walton proclaimed it “the prettiest house in Tulsa.” ree years later, Forsyth and McCormick built a Tulsa icon: e Clubhouse at Southern Hills Country Club resembling a 17th-century English Country manor on land donated by Phillips.

e legendary team produced masterpieces, but not e ortlessly. e two men were mighty talents with large egos and opposite-pole personalities; they clashed repeatedly. Forsyth was quiet and reserved. McCormick, 11 years older, was outgoing and met people by sticking out his hand and declaring “McCormick,” yet he was an elegant gentleman who commanded respect. Whereas Forsyth was married six times, McCormick was devoted to his only wife, Lillian, and their only daughter, Sylvia, who described him as a wonderful father. “He composed a lullaby for me when I was 2,” Sylvia says, “and gave me a sports car for my 16th birthday.”

His life and his talent enjoyed a wide span. At Cornell he was on the crew team and had a passion for cross-country skiing. As a young man he bicycled across Europe playing the piano at pubs along the way. He served in both World War I and II. He was a patron of the performing arts, an artist (etchings, aquatints and woodwork), a musician ( ute, guitar, piano) and composer. An architect skilled in many styles, he advocated for preserving old structures downtown. He always drove a di erent route home, Realtor Joe McGraw says, to keep ideas fresh and new.

Of all the homes he designed, his favorite was the one he created for himself and his family. A contemporary residence on 34th Street near Lewis, it is set in its own idyllic landscape next to a small pond. A little creek crosses under the entrance drive.

Of all his professional accomplishments, what he most cherished, his daughter says, was Tulsa Ballet’s performance of his waltz composition, “Romance in Vienna.” e man who built his legacy in stone watched ballet dancers in oating pastel tutus and said, “I can’t believe this is really happening to me.” He was a romantic at heart. TP