A mix of clouds and sun. High 87F. Winds light and variable..

A few passing clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 67F. Winds light and variable.

John Brooks Walton with wife, Mag

John Brooks Walton with wife, Mag

B earded and bespectacled, John Brooks Walton was a woolen mitten of a man with a melodious baritone, dry wit and passion for historic Tulsa houses.

The prolific architect’s affable image was an asset. A potential client was impressed with a candidate in a Mercedes convertible and a Brooks Brothers suit, but Walton, who arrived wearing a sweater and driving a van with a dog in the front seat, looked easier to work with and was hired. 

He was a historic renovator, author, painter, pack rat collector whose garage sales became so famous police had to direct traffic and a father of six who wrangled the entire family into his renovation projects. 

Thrifty of purse but generous of heart, he ran an extension cord out to the unsheltered man who slept behind his office. 

He was trained in contemporary design (but loved traditional architecture best), was mentored by legendary John Duncan Forsyth and besotted by the storybook cottages of Charles Stevens Dilbeck. 

Walton’s versatility was remarkable: Country French, Country English, contemporary, rural English, Irish cottage, California modern, barn concept, horse stable and more. 

He grew up in Ponca City trailing after two Auntie Mame aunts, drew houses by age 4 and married his college sweetheart, Margaret “Mag” Stanley, after they graduated from Oklahoma A&M University in 1953.

With a medical 4-F designation (no Korean War service, no GI Bill benefits) in the mid-1950s, he couldn’t join the other young architects buying homes in Tulsa’s new, hip, all-electric Lortondale area. For $35,000 he and Mag bought a house at 1217 Hazel Blvd. and began renovating it. That launched a profitable side gig — flipping houses.

It wasn’t called Maple Ridge then. “They were just big, old houses that nobody wanted,” Mag says, “but they were wonderful for big families.” “No air conditioning,” daughter Ann Walton remembers. The Walton children slept on the house’s sleeping porch during the summer. 

In 1965, with a houseful of children under the age of 12 and no clients, Walton opened his own architecture firm. “It was scary,” Mag laughs, “but great fun. We thought, ‘It’ll all work out.’” She went to night school to get a master’s degree and tutored students. 

He bought, restored and sold some 20 old houses in Maple Ridge and 30 or more nearby. Sometimes he bought all the contents of the old houses. He collected everything from door knobs to fireplace mantels. He shopped with both abandon and a shrewd eye, flea markets to the Far East. He repurposed (frayed carpets into upholstered footstools), he rehomed (art deco chandeliers for a client’s new home), he filled a warehouse and sold the overflow. 

Next personal renovation: the legendary W. G. Skelly Mansion, 2101 S. Madison Ave.  Some years later, Mag turned their mansion home into a boarding house with exchange students from Mexico. “I had 10 at the table for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” she says. 

Walton put Maple Ridge on the map, and it is now known as upscale and historic. Southern Living Magazine recognized him in 1990 for his historic preservation work.  

“He was a character and funny as hell,” says architect Scott Ferguson, Walton’s employee for 10 years. He remembers how Walton lugged three “big, monster bags of crystal and china” back from England, sailing through Customs with a cheerful, “I have nothing to declare,” and how he met with a client, knocked out a complete design in an hour, then held it for three weeks to give the project gravitas. 

He was the Grand Poobah of taste, unexpectedly rearranging the furniture in homes and offices he visited and dictating in his own home. “I had to put my Monkees poster behind the door,” Ann says.

In his 70s he started writing his 14 books about Tulsa-area homes, architecture and art, which sprouted from the recurring “Historic Homes” column that ran in TulsaPeople Magazine starting in 1993. In his 80s, with a shaky hand that couldn’t draw a straight line, he stopped practicing architecture, daughter Jane Walton says. “He picked up a paint brush instead and those squiggly lines became magic on canvas.”

His last great garage sale was a four-day affair. He died the following year, Oct. 22, 2016, at age 87.

Among the legacies he left his children was a love of old homes, a tendency to rearrange other people’s furniture and a fearless spirit: Just go for it. It’ll all work out.

Your comment has been submitted.

There was a problem reporting this.

Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated. Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything. Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person. Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts. Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.