Brut Hotel opened in September 2023 at 1840 South Boulder Avenue in Tulsa's SoBo district. It occupies a nine-storey brutalist building from 1953 and has 82 rooms, a rooftop restaurant called Soma, a pool bar, a lobby café, a day spa and a year-round pool.
SoBo is the area south of downtown Tulsa, and the hotel sits about a mile from the city centre. The building is on South Boulder Avenue, close to the Arkansas River, and the rooftop looks out over both the skyline and the river.
The concept
The building went up in 1953, and accounts of its first use differ: an apartment block, a secretarial school, or both. It stood empty for years before Sharp Development, a Tulsa firm, and Wolf Group Properties took it on. Sikes Abernathie Architects, also from Tulsa, handled the design, and the work lasted about three years, with pandemic-era costs blamed for delays.
The name comes from the French for raw concrete, béton brut. Steel was expensive in the 1950s and concrete was the next best material, which is why the structure looks as it does. Inside, the developers went the other way: soft, organic and plant-filled, with the concrete and a neutral palette carried into the rooms.
Check-in is at 3 pm and check-out at 11 am. The hotel has a lawn for outdoor events and a boardroom for meetings.
Dining & wellness
Soma Rooftop is the restaurant and cocktail bar on the roof, serving brunch and dinner with live music each week. Dweller Café in the lobby serves coffee and pastries and doubles as a place to work. Rosa Pool Bar does cocktails and tacos by the water.
The pool is open year-round from 7 am to 11 pm, and day passes are sold. The on-site day spa is called 1820 Spa.
News
September 8, 2023: Brut Hotel opened in Tulsa's SoBo district in a 1953 brutalist building at 1840 South Boulder Avenue, redeveloped by Sharp Development and Wolf Group Properties with Sikes Abernathie Architects. It has 82 rooms over nine floors and the Soma rooftop restaurant, which looks over the skyline and the Arkansas River.
