The new owners of a Phillips 66 cottage-style gas station along Route 66 in Chandler, Oklahoma, have begun the restoration of the historic structure in earnest, including painstaking work on its multi-colored roof.
Owners Shane and Sara Massie and others have posted photos on Facebook in the last two weeks of the work being done on the so-called Westfall Station at 707 Manvel Ave. (aka Route 66).
I asked through Facebook Messenger what’s next for the site. Sara Massie replied earlier this week:
Our plans for the very immediate future are to finish the roof, and then get the doors and windows put back in place. We plan to continue working inside this winter. We haven’t sat down and come up with a specific plan for the winter, but eventually we’ll need to get the electric and plumbing fixed, paint inside, replace the ceiling, and things like that.
We don’t have a specific end goal, other than to have the building back as close to original as possible, and for some type of business to open in it. We’ve kicked around a few different ideas about what business that may be, but we aren’t close enough to that point to make any final decision yet.
The Westfall Station account also posts interesting historical tidbits from time to time, including this image of the station when it was a Texaco:
The Massies have an Airbnb site adjacent to the station, which you can see below:
A local bank foreclosed on the station about two years ago and put it up for sale, with its stated preference to a buyer who would preserve it because it’s a landmark in the town.
Phillips 66 filling station No. 1423 in Chandler was built in 1930 as a brick, cottage-style design so it would blend in more with residential neighborhoods.
Bill Fernau bought the property and spent years restoring it. It eventually was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.
Fernau sold the property a few years ago and moved to Montana.
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