General Patrick Hurley opened the Ambassador Hotel in 1929, intending it to be a luxury "extended stay" residence for Tulsa businessmen (mostly oil business top executives), who were building mansions that were not yet ready for occupancy. Hurley never stayed in the hotel he founded. He moved to Washington, D. C. in March 1929, after President Herbert Hoover chose him to be Secretary of War, after the death of the previous Secretary, who died in December 1929. Hurley never returned to Tulsa.
The hotel business in Tulsa cooled with the onset of the Great Depression. The building had a succession of owners and uses after the Great Depression, and was vacant for more than a decade at the end of the 20th century. An investment group bought the property in 1999, and spent heavily on restoration before reopening it as a boutique hotel, a niche market it continues to occupy. In 2014, the Ambassador agreed to rebrand itself as part of the Autograph Collection Hotels of Marriott International.[2]
History
Hurley had retained N. E. Peters as architect and Webb L. Elson as builder in 1928.
Delbert Development Company, a subsidiary of Kewanee Oil Company, bought the building in 1960 and converted the Ambassador to a commercial-type apartment hotel. The Ambassador became housing for retired seniors after the oil business declined in Tulsa, and closed altogether in 1987. Real estate developer Paul Coury and a group of investors bought the building in 1999 and began a $5.5 million restoration.