Civic leader Frank Johnson Hightower died at his home at 429 N.W. 16th. The Hightower home is on the Registry of Historic buildings. He died of cardiac arrest on Sunday, October 8, 2000 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was born in 1922 and was a prominent businessman who owned the historic downtown Hightower Building, which was built in 1928 by his grandfather, Frank P. Johnson. He is survived by his wife Dannie Bea James Hightower; two sons , Geoffrey Pearson Johnson Hightower and wife Mildred E. Farmer, Michael James Johnson Hightower and wife Susan P. Jones; five grandchildren, Susan Barrett, William Johnson, Ashley James, Lindsay James, and Cody Dickson Hightower. A Solemn Requiem Mass will be celebrated at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in the presence of the immediate family. Memorial contributions may be made to Casady School, 9500 North Pennsylvania Avenue, OKC 73156. St. Paul's Cathedral, 127 N.W. 7th St, OKC 73102, or the Myriad Botanical Gardens, 100 Myriad Gardens, OKC 73102.

Mr. Hightower graduated from Yale University with a degree in history. His building in downtown Oklahoma City contained the Cellar Restaurant which opened in 1957 and closed 27 years later. Hightower was Beaux Arts Ball King in 1970 and a founding trustee of Casady School. He and his wife, Dannie Bea, were major supporters of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Oklahoma Arts Center, Allied Arts, World Neighbors, Children's Medical Research and the Festival of the Arts. The Hightowers were heavily involved in the planning the Oklahoma Garden Festival scheduled in February. It is the first major garden show of its kind for Oklahoma City. It will be at the Myriad Gardens, which the Hightowers were instrumental in developing. In 1986 Mr. Hightower won an award from Oklahoma City Beautiful for renovation and landscaping of the Hightower building.

The son of prominent businessman and civic leader Wilbur E. Hightower, young Frank was sent to New Hampshire’s Exeter Academy before heading to Yale. He married Dannie Bea James, whose father was Dan W. James, longtime owner of the Skirvin Hotel. The wedding, in January 1949, was described in The Oklahoman as "the social event of the season.”

"Mr. Hightower had impeccable taste. He was born with it,” Dannie Bea said. "Then he worked for the State Department during World War II. He was stationed in Moscow and saw all of Europe. He saw all these old world treasures, and he wanted to share what he’d seen here.”

He started with The Hightower retail store on the ground floor of the Hightower Building, which expanded from three stories to eight in the 1920s.

"He thought it was silly for people to drive to Dallas to get things,” Dannie Bea said. "He used to always say that if a city doesn’t have a thriving downtown, it doesn’t have a heart.”

About the time he opened the retail store, he changed the small restaurant he’d opened in the basement into a tearoom.

"Frank Hightower had an obsession with fine food,” Dannie Bea said. "He flew to New York City to take cooking classes.”

The teacher of that class was James A. Beard, America’s pre-eminent gourmand and instructor of French cuisine. Hightower brought Beard to Oklahoma City to do cooking classes at the YWCA for a benefit. Clearly, a tearoom would no longer do.   Read more: http://places.newsok.com/the-cellar-restaurant/article/3467325#ixzz242jUSKdH   another article here and more here.

||| Revised: 08/21/12