This morning we drove into the north side of downtown Buffalo to tour the Darwin Martin House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1902 and finished in 1906. It is very close to Delaware Park, on of many Buffalo Parks designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and the site of the 1901 Pan American Exposition. Darwin Martin was an executive with the Buffalo-based Larkin Soap Company and could well afford Mr. Wright. The house is currently under extensive renovation and restoration. A pergola, glass-topped conservatory, and carriage house were demolished in the 1950s when a portion of the property was sold to enable the owner to have funds to maintain the main house. They are being rebuilt with a $28 million endowment.
Quoting from the website, “The Darwin D. Martin House Complex is Frank Lloyd Wright's most extensive Prairie House ever. Only once in Wright's 72-year career as a practicing architect did he have the opportunity to design - as an integrated whole composition - a multi-structure complex interwoven into a richly designed landscape.” Mr. Martin wanted homes for his family members to be built in a “compound” but his sister and her husband were the only ones who had a house built. The Barton House is more modest than the Martin but is serving as the visitors’ center until they can raise funds to build a new visitors’ center.
Frank Lloyd Wright also designed and built a summer home for the Martins in the late 1920s about 15 miles south of the City on Lake Erie that is also being restored. We hope to have time to visit Graycliff before we leave.
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