BancFirst South Claremore
Artist photographer: Rick Buchanan
Interior designer: Cindy Hollingsworth
President and CEO: Jeff Jensen
VP/Regional Retail Sales Coordinator: Julie Adams-Simmons
Billions are spent each year renovating and constructing banking facilities. The best architects and designers are hired. No expense is spared. Yet for all the trouble, it seems to me that most new banks create a sterile generic feeling that just doesn’t give a sense of place. A bank designed for Portland was going to work as well in Portland, Oregon as in Portland, Maine.
When I toured BancFirst Claremore’s grand opening last fall, I noticed that, for all the beautiful surfaces and spaces, the thing that struck me most was the art. Photographic art of local scenes gave the bank lobby and offices “windows” on the community.
BancFirst VP and Retail Regional Sales Coordinator, Julie Adams-Simmons, recently gave me a tour. I had toured the bank on opening night and noticed the art, but it was behind a couple hundred people and a little hard to make out.
“It seems to me that most new banks create a sterile, generic feeling that just doesn’t give a sense of place.”
Designer Cindy Hollingsworth did a masterful job of art placement.
As you enter the bank, you are greeted with a pictorial statement of the bank’s core values, particularly loyalty to the Claremore community.
Just a little further in, one encounters a huge photographic mural of the Will Rogers Hotel, again, a primary Claremore community landmark.
All around you in the bank’s main lobby are, what appears for the life of me, to be windows. Photographic art placed in such a way to look like windows 
looking out on the town. The “window” showing Dot’s café and the flag is particularly striking.
As you move upstairs, the appearance is one of windows looking out on Rogers County. The executive lobby features perhaps the most realistic picture I’ve ever seen. Just railroad tracks. What better says Claremore?
Entering the boss’ office, we see Jeff Jensen’s favorite, a simple street scene downtown and right across the way, a rock formation depicting the state of Oklahoma.
What a great way to celebrate and display BancFirst’s loyalty and commitment to the Claremore community!
Keep it local, Claremore.
by Robby Melton
