Bandera dude ranch to preserve work of Frank Lloyd Wright

BANDERA - The Texas Hill Country has long offered paying visitors a taste of ranch life. But the opening in 1947 of the Flying L Dude Ranch - with its own airport and a pilot's lounge designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright - drew national media attention

It was billed as the nation's first dude ranch airpark, with much of the buzz centered on "a fashion rodeo" of dozens of models, designers and celebrities flown in from California. "One of the attractions was roping cattle from airplanes," noted a Pittsburgh Press story.

Susan and Jody Jenkins now have ambitious plans for the long-neglected local structure with the rather special pedigree. As owners of what is now called the Flying L Guest Ranch, they want to create a museum dedicated to Wright's work there nearly 70 years ago and the cowboy-oriented tourist trade it helped establish.

Having secured a Texas Historical Marker for the site this summer, the Jenkinses are ramping up efforts to raise money to convert the lounge into a museum to display artifacts about the ranch, Wright's work there and local history.

"This has been our dream for 10 years," said Susan Jenkins, who managed the ranch before buying it with her husband.

Loved to fly

The fly-in vacation retreat south of Bandera was created by Jack Lapham, a retired oilman and Army Air Corps colonel who loved to fly.

Life magazine's spread on the gala opening prominently featured the pilot's lounge, basically a two-story quonset hut with a large window and an immense interior fireplace, features distinctive to many works by Wright, who died in 1959.

Called "the greatest American architect of all time" by the American Institute of Architects in 1991, Wright designed more than 1,000 structures, of which 532 were built. The pilot's lounge is one of 10 of them that still stand at the Flying L. Guests can still rent the other nine - small concrete villas arranged to appear from above as planes in formation.

But nobody flies here anymore - a water park and golf driving range replaced the two runways that went out of service in the 1980s, the Jenkinses say.

The Life magazine story on the ranch opening said it offered guests riding, hunting, fishing and more for $15 a day. A steak dinner went for $1.90.

By the time the Jenkinses bought the business three years ago, the pilot's lounge was in bad shape, filled with discarded mattresses and other trash, and with nearly all of its windows missing.

They cleaned it out, repaired the windows and spent about $5,000 to restore electrical and plumbing services so guests could again enjoy it.

$10,000 for project

The chance to promote tourism and preserve Wright's legacy brought the project's first installment of outside cash - $10,000 in local sales tax proceeds - in a Bandera City Council vote last week, backed by the Bandera Economic Development Corp. and Bandera County Commissioners.

Councilwoman Cindy Coffee said the community is fortunate to have Wright-designed buildings and called the proposed museum "an excellent investment" in local tourism.

"I think Bandera should embrace it," she said, noting, "The buildings have a tremendous amount of potential."