Hotels 09 Oct 2026 read
Owners and hoteliers Sara Kate and Jason Little restored a 1912 Victorian, added a new guesthouse, and filled 36 rooms with vintage finds from across Europe and the U.S.
On a quiet stretch of old Route 66 in Oklahoma City, a Victorian-style home built in 1912 by cattleman William L. Bradford, has lived several lives. It housed some of the city's most well-heeled residents through the roaring 1920s, served as convalescent housing during the Second World War, and by the 1960s and 70s was home to artists, actors and politicians. Firsthand accounts tell of visits from Hollywood star Rock Hudson and a then-presidential candidate Jimmy Carter. Now it has a new chapter as Bradford House, a 36-room boutique hotel. Walk through its front door and that word barely covers what's actually happening inside. There's a restaurant plating French and Italian dishes, a gilded cocktail bar humming with regulars, a bakery counter perfuming the hallway with croissants, and a wrap-around porch that functions less like hotel signage and more like an open invitation.
That distinction matters, because Bradford House was never really conceived as a hotel business first. It's the work of Sara Kate and Jason Little, a husband-and-wife team behind Nostalgia Shoppe, the development and design company they founded to take on projects together. Sara Kate is an interior designer and stylist known for scouting vintage pieces with a story, and Jason is a commercial real-estate professional. Together they set out to build a home, and the hotel's own website borrows a line from T.S. Eliot that does more explaining than any tagline could: "Home is where one starts from." Everything that followed, from the architecture to the antiques on the mantel, was built to protect that feeling.
Old bones, new additions
The property is a study in architectural duet, courtesy of Gardner Studio. The original 1912 structure, a three-story home built as four large apartments, has been restored with its bricks, tiles, mirrors, and millwork intact, then nudged toward whimsy with additions that echo the colourful townhouses of London. Beside it stands a newly built modern guesthouse, its clean lines borrowed from the hoteliers' trips to Scandinavia and from Mies van der Rohe's Lafayette Park in Detroit — an unlikely but effective reference point for the American heartland. The two buildings meet in a landscaped courtyard — a quiet counterpoint to the more social front porch. The space doubles as a venue too: Bradford House has three indoor spaces plus the courtyard for weddings and corporate events.
Design Hotels, which counts Bradford House among its members, sums up the effect neatly: a "rich historical heritage" on the famous old Route 66, laced with "undertones of nostalgia and European touches," letting guests rediscover the American heartland through what they call a bold and sophisticated lens.
Generations of taste, under one roof
Inside, Sara Kate worked with interior design firm Pastiche Studios to create rooms that feel less like a design portfolio and more like a home rearranged by generations of the same family. Vintage Italian furniture sits near Old World exhibition posters from Paris; French WWII-era medicine cabinets have been repurposed as end tables; Stilnovo chandeliers from Italy hang above framed prints of Hermès scarves. It is maximalist in spirit but never cluttered — the kind of curated eclecticism that comes from a trained eye that has spent years hunting it down on buying trips across Europe and America.
The 36 rooms carry that same instinct, split across two buildings, the Historic Home and the Modern Guest House, each with its own mood. The original house, home to 12 of the rooms, leans into period charm without feeling like a museum. Its soaring ceilings, balconies, tiles, mirrors and millwork are original, and vintage wallpaper lines the bathrooms. Guests are greeted by a Maria Teresa chandelier and a hand-painted chinoiserie mural of branches and birds climbing the three-story staircase. Nearly all of the main house's furniture, lighting and accents are European antiques, from velvet club chairs with bullion fringe to worn leather art deco chairs. The newer wing, with 24 rooms overlooking the courtyard, is quieter and more contemporary, with furniture fabricated by Gardner Studio. Both are layered with thoughtful finds and placed with care, alongside the comforts travellers actually need. It's also officially family-friendly, which not every boutique hotel this design-forward can say.
If the guest rooms are where Bradford House keeps its history, The ground floor is where the design does its most social work. Italian lighting links the two buildings, with a Stilnovo chandelier over the bar and Venini Murano glass pendants dotting the café counter, fixtures that Sara Kate says blend well and connect the historic house to the guesthouse behind it. The café walls are lined with more than 100 framed portraits of Oklahoma City residents from 1910 to 1960, bought by Sara Kate at a local estate sale while she was in college, so the room reads like a family gallery. The kitchen, led by chef Caleb Stangroom, turns out French- and Italian-leaning dishes alongside American classics in an intimate dining room that opens onto the porch or a cosy library. At the Gilded bar, classic cocktails and wines from family-owned wineries share the room with that chandelier, and the Quincy Bake Shop counter handles the croissants and pastries.
It's a smart bit of hospitality math: a hotel that's also a neighbourhood café and its Friday-night bar tends to feel alive at hours when most boutique properties go quiet.
Building culture, not just a business
What separates Bradford House from a merely handsome renovation is the intent behind it. As Jason puts it, the project was never just about running a business — it was about building culture and community for his family, and by extension, for the city around them. That civic streak shows up even in the small print: the hotel publishes its own neighbourhood guide, positioning itself less as a self-contained retreat and more as a gateway into the surrounding city. But the pitch here was never really about points or pedigree — it's about a hundred-year-old house that somebody clearly loves, and the fact that, for a night or two, you're invited to love it too.
