Omaha Exploration

Dundee Bank on the southwest corner of 38th and Farnam Streets was originally built as the White Rose Service Station in 1930 by the National Refining Company. Being located within a residential area, the station’s design was important and it had to “fit in” to the suburban setting of the Blackstone district.

In order to accomplish this goal, the station was built in the Tudor Revival style which was popular for homes at the time. This style made the station more palatable to both its neighbors and to travelers along the Lincoln Highway. It was intended to serve as “a model for its gas stations and to glamorize automobile travel” according to the 1977 book Omaha City Architecture. The property remained in use as a service station under various names until the early 1980s.

In 1984 Don (Dino) Norlin purchased the property and opened the Italian restaurant, Villa Dino’s. Its conversion took a considerable amount of work including removing the smell of gasoline and the addition of an outdoor patio where the gas pumps once sat. When he opened the restaurant he incorporated many of the original fixtures including the quarry stone tile floor. The restaurant which offered a variety of Italian and American cuisine closed in 1994.

That same year Thomas Foster opened McFoster’s Natural Kind Café. His restaurant aimed to serve the best vegetarian dishes from all major cuisines. In addition to its menu, the restaurant was known for its live music which was usually performed on the upper floor. One of the city’s first vegetarian-focused restaurants, it operated for 20 years before closing in late 2014.

In 2015 Thomas sold the building to Security State Bank of Ansley, NE which renovated it and opened it as the second branch of Dundee Bank in Omaha. The bank also made efforts to retain many of its original historic details. The interior restoration work on the building received an AIA Nebraska Awards of Merit and in 2015 the Restoration Exchange Omaha preservation award for a commercial property.

Dundee Bank is no stranger to historic preservation. In 2006 they turned the former Ernest Buffett grocery store at 5015 Underwood Avenue into its first Omaha branch. Its third branch was opened at 1407 S 13th Street in the Little Bohemia neighborhood in 2021. The fourth branch was opened in Benson at 6073 Maple Street in 2024.

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