Even though I went to the Darwin Martin House in Buffalo
just last fall, I was eager to return when my friend Nanette visited recently
from Florida. We made an entire day of it by looping in Graycliff Estate, as
well.
I found I had forgotten more of the previous tour than I recalled, although it’s also possible that each docent emphasizes different
things. For example, Wright’s architecture for the 1.5 acre site was meant to
“act as recuperation,” to appeal to Darwin Martin’s desire for a true home
(which he hadn’t had during his challenging childhood from a broken family).
Martin dreamed of uniting his fractured past in Wright’s design of spatial openness, tempered by a warm, human scale (although the main house is anything
but warm!). I was reminded of Wright’s fondness for hiding the front door, to
make visitors really examine the house, and of his art of lowering the entrance
to a room so that you would feel a sense of “compression and release.”
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| Art glass windows |
The house fell into disrepair after it was abandoned by
the family, after their financial ruin in the Great Depression. Curiously,
Wright, who owed Martin a considerable sum of money, never repaid the debt, but instead purchased back furniture and art glass from Martin’s wife, Isabelle,
to try to keep her afloat… This house was built before Wright began
“client-proofing” his houses by building most of the furniture in, to prevent
the residents from deviating from his floor plan! In the intervening years, three
of the structures were bulldozed to make room for apartment buildings, to
finance renovations on the main house (the apartment buildings have thankfully
since been razed).
Several of the spaces I’d previously seen were off
limits, due to the ongoing $50 million restoration project (when asked when the
project was projected to end, the docent replied, “at $50 million”!). The
15,000 piece glass mosaic for the fireplace should be complete by the end of
this year, so another trip in 2017 will probably be in order…
Isabelle Martin had poor eyesight, so when the Martins
engaged Wright to design their 6800 s.f. “lake cottage,” she was the client of
record, and worked with the architect to design a more open house with lots of
light (and none of the customary art glass), and lots of passive solar.
Construction took advantage of free matieral: some of the Tichenor limestone of
the cliff that had fallen to the beach, complete with fossils and the rust from
the stone’s ore content. Other novel features included one room’s recycled
slate from Buffalo sidwalks, wh
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| model of Graycliff |
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| fossils and rust |
The Martins continued to occupy Graycliff for five years
after they abandoned the city house. In the 50’s, it was bought by Hungarian
priests for student boarding, and their modifications upset Wright the one time
he visited. The Graycliff Conservancy is in the midst of several phases of
restoration, so this house will also continue to evolve and be worthy of return
trips. The lake setting was beautiful, even in late winter, and I can only
imagine what it will look like when I visit again some summer, and everything
is in bloom.
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| A cool house on Old Lakeshore Road |
For Nanette’s version of the visit, click on DarwinMartin House and Graycliff Estate.
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