Want To See My Wedding Reception Garden From Many Years Ago? 🌿

Join Linda Vater and Stewart for a deeply personal and historical tour of the Saint Luke’s Mansion—formerly the Hefner Mansion, one of Oklahoma City’s most treasured historic homes. Built in 1917, this 10,000-square-foot residence has been lovingly restored by Saint Luke’s Methodist Church and now serves as a vibrant community and event space in Heritage Hills, one of OKC’s oldest neighborhoods.

In this episode, Linda revisits the place where she and her husband celebrated their wedding reception 36 years ago, reflecting on timeless memories while exploring the mansion’s grand architecture, elegant parlors, intricate light fixtures, and beautiful courtyard. You’ll also meet Ashley Robinson, who shares fascinating stories about the mansion’s past, its transformation, and how Saint Luke’s continues to use it for outreach, weddings, baptisms, and community gatherings.

Whether you love Oklahoma history, historic architecture, heritage preservation, or simply appreciate elegant homes, this video is a must-watch. Linda also shares her outfit of the day, a nod to timeless style and grace—plus a peek at her favorite thrifted finds that complete her look.

🕰️ Highlights:

Built in 1917, home of Justice Robert Hefner

Once used by the Oklahoma Historical Society

Now owned by Saint Luke’s United Methodist Church

Tour includes the original kitchen, parlors, library, chapel, and courtyard

Linda’s wedding memories and personal reflections

Historic Heritage Hills architecture and Oklahoma City history

If you’re in the Oklahoma City metro, make time to walk through Heritage Hills and stop by Saint Luke’s Mansion to experience a true piece of Oklahoma’s story.

📍 Location: Heritage Hills, Oklahoma City, OK
🎥 Host: Linda Vater
📸 Produced by: Stewart Perryman

👇 Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:00 History of the Mansion
04:00 Tour of the Original Kitchen
08:00 Parlor and Library Walkthrough
12:00 The Chapel and Courtyard
17:00 Linda’s Wedding Memories
18:00 Closing Reflections

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[Music] and welcome to the St. Luke’s Mansion, formerly the Hefner Mansion and one of the residences or venues rather that’s on the Heritage Hills home tour this weekend, October 4th. And if you are in the neighborhood attending my garden tour, then you might want to take advantage of this historic home tour as well. Lots of beautiful, beautiful places and a lot of them having some very special memories for me. Particularly this one right here where my husband and I had our wedding reception 36 years ago. I can’t believe time has has flown. And it is just a brief 10 block walk from my house, The Cottage on the Hill. So, what do you say? Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Well, the most impressive or at least my favorite thing about the mansion is this LA of absolutely gorgeous mature crepe myrtles. They’re simply stunning. The bark or lack thereof is really really gorgeous and it makes a wonderful exit or entry into the back courtyard which is actually where we held our wedding reception many years ago and also parenthetically where Taylor’s mother got married I want to say three or four years ago. It’s very very impressive and like I say it has lots of meaning for the B family. Well, as I said, this was formally the residence of the Hefner. It being the Hefner Mansion. It used to be an event center when I had my wedding reception here, and it was recently purchased by St. Luke’s Methodist Church, which now pretty much consumes the entire block. They use this as an event center, offices, meeting rooms, etc. and they have really restored it and made some modifications to it to suit their very obvious and different needs than a family residence. So, let’s go inside. Well, there might be some ambient noises around here as we shoot today because there’s lots of people here. This is a very active place. Let me introduce you to Ashley. Ashley, tell me your last name. Robinson. Robinson. And what is your role here at the mansion? I do community engagement for the church, St. Luke’s Methodist Church. Well, and what a beautiful place for you to work in. I really enjoy it and I’m really only here a little bit. I do have a full-time job somewhere else, but I just love what we do at St. Luke’s and am encouraged to keep getting the community involved. Yeah. Yeah. It’s really, really wonderful. Um, so tell us a little bit about this dwelling. It was built in 1917. Did you tell me that? Yeah. Originally um built in 1917 and was um the residence of Robert Hefner and his family in 1927 and on until I believe his death in the 70s and and he was on the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Okay. Was an attorney. Yeah. Yeah. A very very famous name here in Oklahoma. So let’s just start walking to the back a little bit. Now again, this has been modified for offices, for clerical use, for community gatherings, things of that nature. So it’s not going to have the same flavor as it would have had if it were historically intact for as a family residence. But let’s look at some of the rooms and how how large. Let’s start working that way. Yeah. Um how large did you say 10,000 square feet? 10,000 square feet. Um unbelievable. Unbelievable. Pretty large. three stories with a basement and the majority of the space these days is used for office space and gatherings and gatherings and you can see there’s been clearly we’re gathering for Bible study today. Now, this is really fascinating to me because I did a little snooping around before uh before Stuart got here. And this amazes me. This is as we understand it. This is the original footprint of the of the kitchen, though it’s been modified for catering use. Yes. The original um renovation of the kitchen was done to support our um mobile meals services that we have through our church. And we now have it somewhere else, but we continue to use this kitchen to serve the mansion. Yeah. And and I asked her if there was another kitchen, a different kitchen, and she said, “No, this is pretty much it.” But look how tiny it is relative to the rest of the house. It’s just we’ve done the act, you know, the exact opposite now in our own homes where the kitchen is such a prominent part of the living space and here it was just such a tiny tiny part back when two little hallways almost and that’s pretty much it. Yeah. back when people had servants I guess and then they weren’t very sensitive uh I guess to working in the kitchen for those who did the cooking and the serving. So you can see there’s a long hall here and it will go out into the courtyard and we’ll go there momentarily. I don’t want to disturb any events going on but there is it looks like a a library up here or a designated area that’s been converted to a library. Yes, the library. And these days we use it mostly as an administrative meeting area or Bible study area as well. Well, and it’s got a wonderful I don’t know if you can you can see it through the windows, but it’s got a wonderful view into the courtyard. And Stuart, if you want to sneak around this way, we’ll try not to disturb anyone, but you can see there’s a wonderful view to that crepe myrtle allay also with the amazing amazing trunks. And then in the other direction out these windows, every window has a view and there is a fountain outside of that window. Now along the new ADA ramp that was incorporated uh when they took over when St. Luke’s took over the building, you can see some really old pictures of the mansion itself not too long after it was built. I think it was I don’t believe they moved in until gosh maybe 1927 because it took so long to build the mansion and see some old pictures obviously used as very much a probably headquarters for society and and societal entertaining and here is a picture of it when it was under construction. The whole area, Heritage Hills and Mesa Park is a very very old neighborhood historic preservation and it was uh it was most of these dwellings were built at the turn of the century and I would say until into the 1930s um prior to St. Luke’s taking over this place. It was used by the Oklahoma Historical Society which moved to a new location so that St. Look, Luke’s could really You have the whole block. Am I Am I correct? We do. We have the entire block of 14th and 15th between Robinson and Harvey. Okay. And it’s a beautiful facility. If you’re out walking, you can pretty much um circumvent the entire area. And what I love about it too is in addition to the fact that I had my wedding reception here when I was still working and pregnant with my son Johnny, my husband and I came and we looked at the child care facility here. Yes, we do have a world-class childare facility. Oh, it’s Yeah. Unbelievable. And we took a look at it and toured it. And as it as it turned out, I did not use it, but it was uh it was comforting to me. But you have quite the weight list these days. So I bet you do. I would not encourage anyone to look too deeply into it because there’d be quite a disappointment there. But it is a really really wonderful resource. Yeah, it’s really really beautiful and definitely taken advantage of by many people in the neighborhood who can just stroll these beautiful streets to walk their children to child care. So there looks to me as if there are I don’t know parlor one and parlor 2 or dining room one and dining room two. That would be my assumption. Um and upstairs um were bedrooms on the second floor and the third floor was a ballroom and that’s what the majority of the events that were hosted here were were um balls and dinners and society events just like you said. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty in incredible and all out of that tiny little kitchen which just amazes me. Do you know if there were any dumb waiters or anything like that in the We do have an elevator, but I don’t know if it was added during our ADA compliance renovation or if that was originally um part of the dumb waiter service. Yeah, you would think there would have to be a dumb waiter service to get up to the third floor ballroom or somebody was doing a taking a lot of steps. Do you know if the light fixtures are original to the house? They look like they probably are. I have no idea. Um because there are gosh the fixtures are absolutely incredible both in the hallway and in both of these parlors and and these houses they really were built for entertaining. Not only the scale of the interior rooms but even the scale of the porches and everything. You can see how they prior to air conditioning, how they lived outside on the front porch as much as possible during the summer and great big windows to get a good cross breeze. Now, I can only imagine how much it costs to run a home like this. Um but and not just in terms of the servants and you know the maintenance of the facility itself but even things like the scale of the furnishings that you had to acquire to be able to fill these spaces. I mean look at the size of this and and what would you guess how high are these ceilings? I would guess they’re 12 12 feet. I mean it just really incredible. And the amount of dusting, the amount of dusting, just one floor, much less the entire mansion, is is pretty impressive. Okay, let’s go back out into the main hall. And I I don’t think there will be a need to go upstairs. You said that they’re mostly offices and things. Yes. The um prime interest of the second floor is our senior pastor, Bob Long’s office, um which he has done a great job with. Okay. Wonderful. But you can just see the landing up above and the tapestries and it’s just I love all of the windows and interesting window treatments. I really like the window treatments as well. And the third floor that was a ballroom has been framed out for officing as well. And so there are multiple offices of very interesting layouts up there that used to be the ballroom. The ballroom. Wow. And from top to bottom here is my outfit of the day. My sunnies are from Bloomingdales, I believe, many, many years ago. My earrings uh are so old I don’t remember where I got them. Uh but they’re kind of fun. My top is Lily Silk. My bag is cross body bag is from Banana Republic. Uh my britches are from Banana Republic as well, I believe. My belt is a thrift store find. I think we bought it someplace near Zion National Park. My walking shoes because I did walk here are Brooks. And let’s see. Have I missed anything? I think that’s I think that’s pretty much it. So, I am trying to remember to do my outfits of the day. Many of you have requested that I start doing them again. Sometimes I just forget and sometimes I’m just not very presentable to even show you what my outfit is. But hopefully you enjoyed that. And if there are any links, we’ll try to provide the employee. Okay. So, multiple sets of staircases. So, this is the grand staircase that goes upstairs with the landing. But then there’s a secondary staircase right here accessible looks like to the kitchen. And then it goes down into the basement and then this goes up to the second floor. And the third floor. This is the only staircase that goes all the way to the third floor. This main staircase only goes to the second floor with the landing. Oh, interesting. You know, I’m wondering how that worked when you had guests that came in and they didn’t go up the main staircase. Though, this one is doesn’t look like a service entrance. It nevertheless is isn’t quite as grand. Now, can you show us to the chapel? Yes. And to the chapel. And so did you was this window already here? Did did St. Luke’s add this window? Um I believe this window was already here. Um the glass within the chapel and also within our sanctuary is called art glass versus stained glass. And our um archival historians within the church that are many of our 50-year members are very passionate about our art glass. Art glass. Interesting. Interesting. So, it looks like that was the original intention um of this as as a chapel. Interesting light fixture. And this treatment on the walls looks very reminiscent of the treatment I had at my former home, Stuart. It it looks a lot like it. This is a beautiful, very contemplative, quiet space. We do um lots of different services here. We do private joining moments for folks wanting to join the church. We have baptisms here and we do small weddings as well. Yeah, very intimate weddings. Well, I can see that. And how beautiful that it goes out into the courtyard. And weirdly enough, this wasn’t part of the original acquisition of the mansion. It was given to us through the Hefner estate in I think 2010. Oh, interesting. Okay. It was a gift. Okay. Now, Stuart, we might have to enter into the courtyard from a different entrance than through the hallway because, as I said, they’re getting ready for the home tour. There’s lots of power washing, window cleaning, uh, bathroom cleaning, all sorts of scrubbing going on. So, we’ll enter from the outside and I think we can probably take it from there. But, thank you so much, Ashley. Thank you so much. It’s just been so nice of you to show us around. And if you are in the vicinity, you definitely want to come in and take a look at the St. Luke’s mansion right here in Heritage Hills. Can you tell us about this right here? It looks like some beautiful handle work. Mhm. So, our church as a whole actually um dates all the way back to statehood and um we have some of those items still in hands of the church and our historians and our archivists that work with the church um are very proud of how long we’ve been involved in our state and this is one of the items that they have continued to preserve um all the way back from the time that the land run happened. April 28th, 1889. Raised by JB Wheeler of Coruna, Michigan, and W. T. Shaw of Sweet Springs, Missouri. Wow, that is And you can see it’s really been taken care of because they saved it just at the last moment. Well, the former main entrance, very grand up on the main level up on the porch. There’s now a secondary entrance for the offices for St. Luke’s. And now we’re coming down the Crepe Myrtle LA in the opposite direction specifically from east to west. And then to our right to the north of us is the courtyard. And again, every there’s lots of ambient noise. Everybody’s sprucing and spritzing and mowing and blowing. But you can see just how beautiful it is. Right here in this green grass area is where Taylor’s mom got married and stepfather got married. There’s a beautiful fountain um in which some guests at my wedding uh cooled themselves off. I was telling Stuart earlier that the evening of my uh of my wedding reception, we got here and there was no power and there were just an old couple at that time who cur who were the curators um and the caretakers of the event center and well let’s just say it was a challenge to get to get the power back on. The ice sculpture was melting. Uh, oh, and I forgot my caterer didn’t show up because he had his first child that day. Wow. And the first guest while we were rumaging around in the basement with OG& getting the power back on um was my boss and his wife. But it nevertheless uh did not portend to anything but a happy marriage. So that was that was good. But it was a beautiful venue at the time. Um we had it in June. There was lots of things in bloom. We had lots of guests. Uh it was all catered outside and it really was lovely. So it’s nice to have a touch point like that for me. And Stuart, you have a touch point also to this place. Uh my grandmother and grandfather’s ashes are in what’s the wall called? Uh she said it not the crematorium wall and my grandmother and grandfather both signed up here and so that that’s where they are. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. This is a very, very famous, very pivotal church in the Oklahoma City Metroplex. And it’s so nice to have this right within walking distance of my own home. And when we were coming in, I don’t know how many people I saw that um I have worked with over the past in their gardens and on different activities here in Oklahoma City. So, I hope you enjoyed it. If you’re in the area, please make sure to stop back by whether it’s on a tour day or or not because the people are very inviting and the facility is really incredible. [Music]