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Preservation
Ft. Worth's
Burk Burnett Building
THE WORTHINGTON NATIONAL BANK500
Main
Fort Worth, TexasWinner
of the Historic Fort Worth, Inc. Preservation AwardRestoration
of the ground-floor bank completed in December of 2005.
CHS Architects
Primary
Architect - Mojy Haddad
Photos Courtesy Brian J. Hutson & Hutson Creative
Group, Inc |
The
Worthington National Bank Restoration by
Maureen Hollern |
| Greg
Morse, President of Worthington National has put a special emphasis on the Historical
renovation and interior design of his award winning downtown Fort Worth space,
the Burk Burnett Building. He has focused on restoring the building as closely
as possible to its original appearance. He has worked with historians, reviewing
the archives. He has also worked hand in hand with the Bass's interior designer,
artists and specialty contractors to focus on the details of design. Special Italian
marble was custom cut to match original flooring. He hired a custom ironworks
company to create vault doors, office doors and iron teller window bars like old-fashioned
bank teller windows. All the furniture and décor has an antique western appeal.
Steer heads that have been mounted at each of the posts look out over all of the
offices and main teller cages. There are many original pieces of Texas art that
accentuate the Cowtown flare. |
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| Xiang
Xian is the primary artist and Morse commissioned him to create original paintings
for the bank. Xiang is an artist from China who started out painting horses. He
flew into DFW and went to The Four Sixes Ranch and asked if he could watch the
cowboys. He knew nothing about the ranch or owner - Burk Burnett. Coincidentally,
all of these drawings are from his experience at Burk Burnett's Four Sixes Ranch.
Burk Burnett was the original owner of the bank building and the current name
of the building today. |
The
Worthington National Bank Lobby
(Rescued Emily Guthrie Smith mural appears
on left wall.) |
The
largest piece of artwork in the bank's collection is a wall mural painted by Fort
Worth's own Emily Guthrie Smith who taught at Texas Christian University. The
painting once hung in the old the dining area of the old Fort Worth Western Hills
Hotel. When the restaurant burned down, someone pulled most of the mural off of
the wall. An original postcard shows that a small portion of the picture was damaged
and unable to be salvaged. This beautiful piece of history was owned by an art
dealer in Dallas when Mr. Morse purchased it back. He felt that Fort Worth is
where it needed to be.
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