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Ambassador Hotel
 1314 South Main Street
Tulsa, OK 74119
Built in 1929
Ambassador Hotel
Information Provided by Tulsa Preservation
Commission
The Ambassador Hotel is a detached, rectangular, Mission/Spanish Colonial Revival masonry building constructed in 1929. The building footprint is
approximately one-hundred and twenty feet by forty-five feet. The building is Nine stories tall, plus a full basement. It has a poured concrete column and beam
structure which is in excellent condition. The building floor plan on floors two through nine is a double-loaded central corridor along the east/west axis of the
building. This corridor serves rooms on the south and north sides. The ground floor features a lobby with rooms to the west and access stairs to the basement
restaurant on the east. There is an interior stair centrally located on the north wall of the building. The building roof is flat and hidden from view by a parapet.
The property is located on the corner of 14th and Main, just outside of the core of Tulsa's central business district in an area identified as the Southeast Business Area of the Riverview
section of Tulsa. Despite the Main Street address, the most prominent entrance is facing south, on 14th Street. The face of the building is on the north edge of the sidewalk, without any
setback or green space. The east entry of the building is set back slightly from the sidewalk. When the Ambassador was originally constructed, the surrounding neighborhood was
characterized by one- and two-story wood frame single family and duplex residential properties.
Across Main Street, to the east, there were a few parking garages, small hotels and offices, but the neighborhood was predominantly single-family residences. The Ambassador was advertised
as an "Apartment Hotel" with a "moderate tariff by day, week or month". It had a range of
facilities including hotel rooms, "bachelor suites", and "kitchenette apartments". The
construction of the Ambassador apparently addressed a need for long-term housing in a residential neighborhood near the downtown business center, as well as the need for short-term
accommodations for a growing number of business travelers. The immediate area around the
building is now greatly changed. It is described as a "high intensity commercial arc" characterized
by large-scale office/commercial buildings. All of these are newer than the Ambassador Hotel and their styles vary from Art Deco to contemporary projects. Immediately to the north, the
development of U.S. Highway 64 (the southern portion of the Inner Dispersal Loop around the central part of Tulsa) in the 1950's obliterated the residential areas in its path.
The hotel was listed in the National Register on November 17, 1999. It was listed under National Register Criteria C, and its NRIS number is 99001085.
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