Ed Lycan Conservatory (Will Rogers Gardens)

The conservatory is one of the oldest horticultural structures in Oklahoma City. Designed by the firm of Lord & Burnham, it was first installed in 1924 in Douglass Park, near NE 10th Street and Eastern Avenue. In 1912 the city had bought a 160-acre former dairy farm that would become Will Rogers Park, and from 1932 the parks department's horticulturist, Henry Walters, laid out gardens there with landscape architects from the Civilian Conservation Corps and the WPA, whose crews built rock arbors and lakes. In 1936 the glasshouse was moved to the new park.

It is named after Ed Lycan, the Parks Department's first employee, who served from 1912 to 1954 and spent much of that time at Will Rogers Gardens. For decades it was the setting for flower and gardening shows, and the city's garden clubs have met in the park since 1938. In 1987 it received a collection of cacti and succulents from the estate of Charles and Mary Polaski.

Over time the cedar structure deteriorated. The city council approved a 2 million dollar renovation, carried out in 2013: Winn Construction rebuilt the glasshouse to plans drawn up by the city, with American Plant Products and Services supplying the tempered glass. The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a designated Oklahoma Landmark.

The city describes the building as a glass-enclosed Lord & Burnham greenhouse inspired by nineteenth-century Victorian architecture. The 2013 rebuild set out to keep that look: city staff drew the plans by matching pieces of the old glasshouse, down to the roofline, and wooden trim was reused wherever possible. The stone base built by a WPA crew under Henry Walters was retained; because its stem walls were out of square, they had to be levelled so that the roof vents could open and close, which made the job considerably harder.

The original cedar frame gave way to steel, strong enough to carry heavier glazing, with aluminium roof bars. The old single panes were replaced with tempered low-emissivity glass, and only one company in the country could bend panes of the required size. Vents now open automatically, motorised shades slide across in response to sun and heat, and evaporative cooling has replaced the old reliance on breezes. The historic vent wheels were kept for their looks but no longer operate. A boiler in the four working greenhouses behind the conservatory pumps water at 140 °F (60 °C) through pipes and beneath the floor.

Today the conservatory is devoted mainly to plants of arid lands, and the city calls it one of the largest permanent collections of cacti and succulents in Oklahoma. The holding goes back to the 1987 gift of plants from Charles and Mary Polaski. It came close to being lost: after thieves stripped the copper heating pipes, winter cold killed most of the historic cacti. The Central Oklahoma Cactus and Succulent Society then donated plants intended to occupy one wing permanently.

For many years the house combined two settings, with cacti in one room and tropical plants in another, each kept to its own growing conditions. It also served for decades as the venue for the city's flower and horticultural shows, and it is still hired out today for weddings and celebrations.

The conservatory stands on a rise beside the Garden Exhibition Center, a 1963 building of mid-century design with an atrium, at the heart of Will Rogers Gardens on the corner of NW 36th Street and Portland Avenue. An hour is enough for the glasshouse and its neighbours: the Charles E. Sparks colour garden, replanted with perennials and annuals after disease struck the 1938 rose garden in 2014, and the Margaret Annis Boys Arboretum, ten acres of oaks, junipers, crab apples and redbuds. Spring is the most pleasant season, and the park holds its Festival in the Park on the last Saturday in May.