Buffalo's new image.
Here’s one of the four marten houses that, fortunately, were not trashed and are now back
on top of the pergola where
they were originally.
Get it? A marten house
for the Martin House?
That Wright, what a jokester.
The conservatory is a new-build, based on exhaustive research of Wright’s plans, and letters back and forth with Darwin Martin, the Buffalo business man that commissioned the house. The original conservatory and pergola were demolished in the early 1950s and a couple tacky apartment buildings replaced it. Can you believe that?
When you enter the front door of the home, you see right down the pergola to the statue. I walked through the conservatory and 100 ft.-long pergola this summer and it’s quite impressive. Rarely will you ever get a chance to walk through such a quality space. Its play of light, shape, height, pattern, texture, scale, materials and especially the focal point of Nike, make it feel more like a cathedral for plants rather than than a greenhouse attached to a house.
For the opening of the conservatory, Hillary Clinton and Wright’s grandson, architect Eric Lloyd Wright, were among the attendees for its ribbon-cutting. The rest of the house is still in the process of restoration.
They’ll be restoring the formal gardens, cutting gardens and a reflecting pool. They’ve also built a greenhouse (not a reproduction of the original greenhouse on the site) to supply the house and grounds appropriately with annuals.
Also in the works is a plan to reconstruct the original clothes posts (Wright even designed clothesline poles!) and peony beds and other plantings surrounding them - thanks, in small part, to a donation from Garden Walk Buffalo.
The newest addition to the property has been the Wright-designed Gardener’s Cottage. It’s on a different street, but backs up to the property. I haven’t been in there yet, but I’m told it’s charmingly intimate, a contrast to the grandeur of the main house.
I’ve been in the rest of the house many times in its state of disrepair and neglect. The Martin House Restoration Corporation has been giving tours throughout its restoration, so we’ve had a great chance to see its progress over the years.
I’ll be adding posts when the landscaping and plantings are in place (it’s been a construction site for years now).
Better photos here - WNY Heritage Press and Buffalo as an Architectural Museum.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The map to the right shows the construction of the conservatory & pergola. There used to be some really poorly sited & constructed apartment buildings between the two clay tile-roofed buildings designed by Wright where the conservatory now stands (again!).
Below: The conservatory & pergola from outside, taken 1/3/08. The marten houses can be seen on the roof.
