Costing about $1. 2 million at the time (about $15. 7. Webphilbrook museum of art opened on october 25, 1939. The addition of a 70,000 square foot wing in 1990 turned the historic home into a modern museum complex. Webwaite and genevieve phillips established the philbrook art museum (now the philbrook museum of art) in 1938, through the donation of their tulsa residence, villa philbrook, to.