It’s the biggest house in town. It sits almost right up against Enid’s most heavily traveled thoroughfare at Tyler and Garriott. It was built in 1939 by the richest man in town, oilman and banker, H.H. Champlin, and it still is occupied by one of his great-grandsons and his family.

It’s doubtful Champlin had any idea the two-lane street, known then as Lahoma Road, on the north side of his property, would some day be four or five lanes wide, and that there would be thousands of automobiles and huge semi-trailer trucks whizzing by 100 feet from his sun parlor windows every day.

Apparently Champlin had been thinking and talking about building a house during most of the Great Depression years. He had been living in a two-story frame house on property that now is part of First Baptist Church in the 400 block of West Maine.

Roy Shaw, an architect, had been working on plans for a new house for sometime before Champlin called H.B. “Heinie” Bass late one night and told him he was headed for California, and while he was gone he wanted Bass to get started on his new home.

Bass always had thought Champlin would probably build north of town along U.S. 81 across the road from Jerry and Helen Oven, and where some others had built palatial mansions, including Judge M.C. Garber’s home which is a replica of George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon, Va. The old Garber home now belongs to Enid attorney Stephen Jones. But instead, Champlin chose to build in the Kisner Heights addition on the city’s southwest side.

There already were some other upscale homes in the area. The Kisners, who developed the area, had built their big showplace home less than a block away, and the Gentrys had built two homes just across the street. The Kisner addition originally had been the town’s first cemetery.

Champlin originally had figured his home, which he probably knew always would be associated with his name, would cost about $125,000 in 1939. Bass, after viewing the plans and specifications for the mansion, told Champlin’s children (H.H. Champlin was away in California) it could not be built for even $250,000. Today’s cost would undoubtedly be in the millions of dollars. In essence, Joe Champlin told Bass to proceed full speed ahead, and for Bass to handle it exactly as if it were his own home.

Apparently there was nothing cheap, or even ordinary, that went into the house. The specifications called for cast bronze, double-hung windows manufactured only by a plant in Michigan. And, the glass in the windows was to be glazed with violet ray glass made only in England.

The house is built of Briar Hill sandstone quarried in Ohio and shipped to Enid. When first exposed to the air the sandstone is soft and easy to work with, but soon becomes very hard, and as it weathers it develops vivid colors.

The furniture for the house was supplied by a Hollywood, Calif., interior decorator. The woodwork in the mansion was designed by local architect Norris Wheeler and custom made by a Kansas City company.

Champlin insisted on all copper pipes and heating and air conditioning ducts. They encased all the copper gas pipes in copper tubing, and vented them to the outside as a means of preventing anyone from being asphyxiated by a gas leak.

Champlin wanted to be able to adjust the temperature in each room according to individual taste. This required the installation of 67 thermostats throughout the house.

At one point in the construction Bass expressed his concerns to Champlin the “best of everything” that was going into the house was becoming costly. He explained the mounting costs were becoming a matter of great concern to him.

Champlin’s reply was: “Young man, you let me do the worrying about paying for this house. I haven’t the least idea what it is going to cost. But, whatever the cost, I have made more money since it was started than we will ever spend here.”

Some might wonder why a man, even a man as wealthy as Champlin, would in his twilight years — and especially after living a measured and conservative life — construct a mansion that might best be described as extravagant. His health already was failing, and he only lived in the house for five years before his death.

Then, 67 years later you drive past the house with someone who is a stranger to Enid, and he exclaims, “Wow! Who lives in that house?” Then you know why.

The Champlin refinery and oil company long ago were sold, his service stations were closed, as well as his First National Bank. The only physical remains of his amazing life is in the sprawling sandstone mansion and its broad manicured lawn and shade trees. He was Enid’s supreme mover and shaker, and his “extravagant” residence always will remind us of that.



Brown is a retired News & Eagle editor.