The Darwin D. Martin House is a historic house museum in Buffalo, New York. The property's buildings were designed by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright and built between 1903 and 1905. The house is considered to be one of the most important projects from Wright's Prairie School era. It is currently a house museum.

History

The Martin House was built for businessman Darwin D. Martin (1865–1935) and his wife Isabelle Reidpath Martin (1869–1945). The estate also includes the residence of Martin's sister Delta (1859–1937) and her husband George F. Barton (1847–1929).

In 1902, Darwin Martin's older brother William E. Martin commissioned Wright to design his house in Oak Park, Illinois. Upon first meeting Wright, William Martin was so impressed that he immediately wrote to Darwin recommending Wright to design both his house and the new Larkin Company office building then under consideration. As secretary of the Larkin Company, Darwin Martin was instrumental in promoting Wright's selection as architect. Following the Larkin commission, Wright also designed houses for two other Larkin Company executives: William R. Heath and Walter V. Davidson. During the same period, Wright designed the Martin & Martin Building in Chicago, better known as the E-Z Polish Factory, for William Martin.

Wright designed the Martin House estate as an integrated composition of connecting buildings, consisting of the Martin residence itself, a long pergola connecting to a conservatory, a carriage house-stable, and a second, smaller residence, the George Barton House, built for Martin's older sister Delta and her husband George F. Barton, who had been partners with William Martin in Chicago before moving to Buffalo to work for the Larkin Company. The estate also includes a gardener's cottage, the last building to be completed.

Martin, disappointed with the small size of the conservatory, had a 60 ft (18m) long greenhouse constructed between the gardener's cottage and the carriage house, to supply flowers and plants for the buildings and grounds. This greenhouse was not designed by Wright, and Martin ignored Wright's offer "to put a little architecture on it".

Over the next twenty years a long-term friendship grew between Wright and Martin, to the extent that the Martins provided financial assistance and other support to Wright as his career unfolded.

In 1926, Wright designed a second home for the Martins called Graycliff, a summer estate overlooking Lake Erie in nearby Derby, New York. A proposed Martin family mausoleum designed by Wright in 1928 was eventually built by the Forest Lawn Cemetery in 2004.

Design

thumb|[[Nike of Samothrace statue at Darwin Martin House conservatory|upright]]

The estate exemplifies Wright's Prairie School ideal and is comparable with other notable works from this period in his career, such as the Robie House in Chicago and the Dana-Thomas House in Springfield, Illinois. Wright was especially fond of the Martin House design, referring to it for some 50 years as his "opus", and calling the estate "A well-nigh perfect composition". Wright kept the Martin site plan tacked to the wall near his drawing board for the next half century.

In 1900 Edward Bok of the Curtis Publishing Company, bent on improving American homes, invited architects to publish designs in the Ladies' Home Journal, the plans of which readers could purchase for five dollars. Subsequently, the Wright design "A Home in a Prairie Town" was published in February 1901 and first introduced the term "Prairie Home". A semi-circular garden which contained a wide variety of plant species, chosen for their blossoming cycles to ensure blooms throughout the growing season, surrounded the Martin House veranda.

Estate

The estate is located within the Parkside East Historic District of Buffalo, which was laid out by the American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted in 1876. On the ground floor an entry hall bisects the house. To the right, behind a large double sided hearth, is a central living room. The room is flanked by a dining room and library which together create a long continuous space. The other axis, centered on the hearth, continues the living room out to a large covered veranda. By comparison Martin's brother's house cost about $5000, and the Ladies' Home Journal house design an estimated price of $7000.

The Martin House is located at the south end of the estate, at 125 Jewett Parkway in Buffalo. The carriage house also contained the boilers for the estate's heating system. the gardener's cottage is so modest in size that a boxy configuration appears to have been inevitable, contrary to Wright's ideal of opening up the confining "box" of traditional American houses. A plaster cast of the Winged Victory of Samothrace stands at the entrance and creates a vista through the pergola.

The original pergola was demolished in 1962, and was rebuilt between 2004 and 2007. By 1937 the estate had already begun to deteriorate, the walls at the front of the house were crumbling, and the conservatory hadn't been used for several years due to a leak in the heating system. Over the next two decades, the vacant house was considerably vandalized and deteriorated further. In 1946 the city took control over the property in a tax foreclosure sale. The estate was purchased privately in 1955 by architect Sebastian Tauriello, thus saving the house from demolition.

Restoration

The Martin House Restoration Corporation (MHRC), founded in 1992, is a non-profit organization with a mandate to restore the estate to its 1907 condition and to open it as a public historic house museum.

One of Richard Bock's sculptures, Spring, now located in the Bock Museum at Greenville College, was copied in 2008.

Currently the MHRC operates guided public tours and presents educational programs for volunteers and the general public. In 2008, the Gardener's Cottage was finally included on the tours of the estate.

The Eleanor & Wilson Greatbatch Pavilion Visitor Center, designed by Toshiko Mori, opened March 12, 2009.

In June 2017, the restored Wisteria Mosaic Fireplace was first displayed to visitors. It is a 360-degree work of art consisting of tens of thousands of individual glass tiles; its restoration was completed in two years by Botti Studio of Architectural Arts, with guidance from HHL Architects. The unveiling marked the completion of the $50 million project.

A subsequent restoration of the landscaping, by Bayer Landscape Architecture, was completed in July 2019. This restoration cost $50 million. During the early 2020s, the house had an average of 40,000 annual visitors. International visitation to the Martin House, particularly from Canadians, declined from 2025 onward, amid strained relations caused by proposals to annex Canada by U.S. President Donald Trump.

See also

  • List of Frank Lloyd Wright works
  • List of National Historic Landmarks in New York
  • List of New York State Historic Sites
  • Other buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Buffalo area:
  • George F. Barton House
  • Graycliff
  • William R. Heath House
  • Walter V. Davidson House
  • Blue Sky Mausoleum

References

Citations

Sources

  • NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation: Darwin Martin House State Historic Site
  • Darwin D. Martin Photograph Collection at University at Buffalo Libraries Digital Collections
  • Darwin D. Martin Photograph Collection from New York Heritage