How to Tour the Ernest Marland Mansion

In his day Ernest Whitworth "E.W." Marland was quite possibly the world's foremost independent oil producer and refiner. He lived the high life in a 22-room mansion in Ponca City, Oklahoma, and brought polo and fox hunting to the prairie.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Visitors enter the house through a porte-cochere and pass through wrought-iron Florentine gates into the entrance hall. To the right is a reception room and the ladies dressing room and to the right the dining room, which is paneled with Pollard oak from the royal forests of Britain's King George V. Beyond the dining room is an octagonal breakfast room and the service pantry. A pair of circular stairs leads up to a hallway with the main stairs on the right, and past that a salon on the left and living room on the right, separated by archways. At the end of the hall is a gallery and ballroom. Spacious terraces surround the house on three sides.

2. The top floor consists of six guest rooms, George's suite, Lydie's Louis XV suites and E. W.'s bedroom, dressing room, library/office and bathroom with sauna.
   
   A stairway in the first floor entrance hall leads down to the lounge floor, which consists of the kitchen, servants hall, two servants bedrooms, various rooms devoted to storage, mechanical and utility functions, the entrance to a tunnel, a card room, the "hall of merriment," a handball court with dressing rooms, a "hunt kitchen," inner (fox hunting) lounge and outer game room lounge/ballroom.

3. The grounds of the estate, now considerably reduced from their original size include Lake Whitmarsh (the last of five lakes), a boathouse, gatehouse, artist's studio, stables and chauffeur's quarters. Some of these buildings have been converted into museums dealing with the Marland family, Marland Oil and the design and construction of the mansion.

Tips & Warnings

• E.W.'s first Ponca City mansion, now referred to as his "Grand Home," is also open for tours.