BUFFALO, N.Y. — Depending on where you look while at the Darwin D. Martin house complex, you get impressions of three completely different things: an archaeological ruin, a 1904 construction site, or a well-preserved historic home.
Rest assured that they're all worth the two-hour drive to Buffalo.
As an architecture fan in Toronto, it's hard not to have heard of the amazing "rescue" of one of Frank Lloyd Wright's most important "Prairie-style" houses by the non-profit Martin House Restoration Corp., since it's the closest Wright building we've got, geographically. As a dedicated heritage preservationist, I find it hard not to love what's happening at the multibuilding site, despite the mild controversy stirred up by purists over the reconstruction of some lost structures.
The largest building on the site is the Martin house. Like an archaeological ruin, the 10,000-square-foot home (15,000 if you include the full basement) sits empty of furniture and full of damage from years of abandonment.
The Darwin D. Martin home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. (Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail)
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Although tens of millions have already been spent on shoring up the foundation, repairing the clay-tile roof and a hundred other unsexy details, the interior spaces lay untouched since the State University of New York occupied it in the 1960s. Floor tiles are missing, paint is peeling and picture hooks cling to dirty walls awaiting art.
In the large kitchen, 45-year-old appliances sit beside yellow Formica countertops, and the foyer/living room's double-sided fireplace is undergoing a "forensic reconstruction." Outside, concrete sills are cracked, and landscaping is badly needed.
All of which is utterly fascinating.
By the time Larkin Soap Co. executive Darwin Martin asked Mr. Wright to design the house for him, he was already a rich man. He had risen through the ranks — from teenaged salesman to clerk to highly paid executive. (He also patented the first card-cataloging system.)
It was after he'd taken on the challenge of locating an architect for Larkin's new administration building, while also thinking about a new house for himself, that he decided to check out a relative unknown who was causing quite a sensation in Chicago's Oak Park neighbourhood.
On the advice of his newly hired architect, two years his junior at age 35, Mr. Martin acquired property at the corner of Jewitt Parkway and Summit Avenue in 1902. It is in the Buffalo neighbourhood of Parkside East, which was designed by Fredrick Law Olmstead. By 1904, the construction of his home was starting, as was work on the design of the majestic Larkin administration building (demolished in 1950).
A year earlier, the shrewd businessman had asked Mr. Wright to first design and build a 2,200-square-foot "test house" toward the rear of the property to ensure the relationship was a success. Mr. Martin's intention was to give it to his older sister, Delta, and her husband, George Barton, upon completion.
This smaller structure — a "mid-priced Prairie" because of its less-dramatic use of art glass and conventional load-bearing walls, explains docent Steven Gattuso — is a well-preserved heritage home, since it has been almost continuously occupied since 1904. Here, original fixtures and wall sconces remain, as does Mr. Wright's built-in buffet and hutch in the dining room.
The Martin house didn't fare so well. Abandoned by Mr. Martin's widow Isabelle in 1938, three years after he died practically penniless, it lay abandoned until Buffalo architect Sebastian Tauriello purchased it in 1954. To raise funds to restore the house, he sold the land between the two houses, resulting in the 1960 demolition of a carriage house/stable and conservatory, and a 100-foot-long pergola that led to them. In their place, three low-rise apartment buildings were built. These buildings have been taken down, and the lost structures by Mr. Wright are being painstakingly rebuilt. With a little creative squinting past the modern machinery, it's possible to pretend the year is 1904 and construction is continuing at the site.
Finding the right kind of brick wasn't easy, however. After eight years, the restoration team found Belden Brick in Ohio and its "beehive" kilns that date back to the 1920s, which guaranteed uneven shades of Roman brick just like the originals.
Inside the Martin house, small devices that look like walkie-talkies are perched on the dentil mouldings in many of the rooms. "They're taking environmental readings as the house reacts during different seasons as people move through," explains Mr. Gattuso, a volunteer at the complex for eight years now.
"Once we're done, we're expecting 80,000 to 100,000 [visitors] a year to this estate, so what we need to do is maintain a museum-quality environment and those are going to help us place the [heating, ventilation and air-conditioning] units."
In a nod to "green" responsibility, the heating and cooling system will be geothermal.
When the new buildings are complete, the final phase of the project — the interiors — will commence.
The cost for the entire restoration project, the only one of its kind to recreate lost Wright buildings, is projected to be $35-million (U.S.) and should be done by 2010.
However, with Buffalo so close, the Canadian dollar so healthy, and the allure of watching history being made — or rather remade — right before your eyes, there's no time like the present to see it.
For information on tours, visit www.darwinmartinhouse.org.
Dave LeBlanc hosts The Architourist on CFRB Wednesdays during Toronto at Noon and Sunday mornings.
