With your size, go 29er.

The problem with most of today's frames (even the steel ones) is that they are generally designed for suspension forks, and tend to have much steeper angles than the bikes of yore.
That said, the Surly Karate Monkey and Ogre, Salsa El Mariachi, among others are quite nice, but are "suspension-corrected". The Fargo is non-suspension corrected, but is designed as an offroad drop-bar (woodchipper) design. That is not to say a flat bar could not be used, but it is optimized for the woodchipper.
Singular cycles in jolly old England designs and builds some very nice, affordable framesets, with an eye towards the classic design and functionality in today's age. The Prairie Peddler in Wisconson is the US distributor. FWIW I've ordered their "Gryphon" frameset (new version with full braze ons should be shipping soon), as it represents a combination of modern day practicality with classic style and geometry (sloping top tube excepted)

Jeff Jones in Oregon espouses the old school ethos, and designs and builds bikes around that philosophy. His ti customs put him on the map, and he now offers steel framesets starting at $750. The catch on this is that his front forks are spaced 135mm with standard disc spacing so a special Paul hub is required.

If staying with the full retro vibe (26er), the Soma Groove is very cool.