Darwin D. Martin House Informations

The Darwin D. Martin House Complex, also known as the Darwin Martin House National Historic Landmark, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built between 1903 and 1905. Located at 125 Jewett Parkway in Buffalo, New York, it is considered to be one of the most important projects from Wright's Prairie School era, and ranks along with The Guggenheim in New York City and Fallingwater in Pennsylvania among his greatest works.

Wright scholar Robert McCarter said of it:

The Martin House Complex was the home of Darwin D. Martin, a businessman, his wife and family, his sister Delta and her husband George Barton.

Martin and his brother, William E. Martin, were co-owners of the E-Z Stove Polish Company based in Chicago. In 1902 William commissioned Wright to build him a home in Oak Park, the resultant William E. Martin House built in 1903. Upon viewing his brother's home Martin was significantly impressed to visit Wright's Studio, and persuaded Wright to view his property in Buffalo, where he planned to build two houses.

Martin was instrumental in selecting Wright as the architect for the Larkin Administration Building, in downtown Buffalo, Wright's first major commercial project, in 1904. Martin was the secretary of the Larkin Soap Company and consequently Wright designed houses for other Larkin employees William R. Heath and Walter V. Davidson. Wright also designed the E-Z Stove Polish Company's Factory built in 1905.

Wright designed the complex as an integrated composition of connecting buildings, consisting of the primary building, the Martin House, a long pergola connecting with a conservatory, a carriage house-stable, and a smaller residence, the Barton House, built for George F. Barton and his wife Delta, Martin's sister. The complex also includes a gardener's cottage, the last building 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.

Some twenty years later, in 1926, Wright designed the second major complex for the Martin family, Graycliff, a summer estate overlooking Lake Erie in nearby Derby, NY. The Blue-Sky Mausoleum Wright designed for the Martins in 1928, but never built, was finally installed at Buffalo's Forest Lawn Cemetery in 2004.

The complex 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 complex "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". The Martin House, designed in 1903, bears a striking resemblance to that design. The facades are almost identical, except for the front entrance, and the Martin House repeats most of the Journal House ground floor. An awkward failure was no direct connection from the kitchen to the dining room. The Journal House had a serving pantry, but Wright was forced to give this up to accommodate the pergola.

Of particular significance are the fifteen distinctive patterns of 394 art glass windows that Wright designed for the entire complex, some of which contain over 750 individual pieces of jewel-like iridescent glass, that act as "light screens" to visually connect exterior views with the spaces within. More patterns of art glass were designed for the Martin House than for any other of Wright's Prairie Houses.

Walter Burley Griffin landscaped the grounds, which were created as integral to the architectural design. 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. The garden included two sculptures by Wright collaborator Richard Bock.

The Complex is located within the Parkside East Historic District of Buffalo, which was laid out by the American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted in 1876. Darwin Martin purchased the land in 1902. Construction began in 1903, and completed with Wright signing off on the project in 1907. The original complete Martin House Complex was 29080 ft2 (2700m2).

Built between 1902 and 1905, the Martin House is distinguished from Wright's other prairie style houses by its unusually large size and open plan. 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. To the left of the entry hall, is a reception room similar in size to the living room, the kitchen, and several smaller rooms. A separate mass provides for a reception room hearth, and one to the level above. The wing completes with a porte-cochère balancing the veranda. Above the entry hall, stairs wrap a small covered light well opening to the second floor. This floor provides eight bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a sewing room. The entry hall continues on axis to the pergola and conservatory beyond.

Martin had imposed no budget and Wright is believed to have spent close to $300,000. 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 complex, at 125 Jewett Parkway, Buffalo.

Construction on the Barton House began first in 1903 and not only was it the first building of the complex to be completed but also the first of Wright's in Buffalo. The principal living spaces are concentrated in the center two story portion of the house where the reception, living and dining areas open into each other. The two main bedrooms are on the second story, at either end of a narrow hall. On the ground floor the kitchen is at the north end, while a scaled veranda extends from the reception hall to the south.

The Barton House is on the east side of the complex, at 118 Summit Avenue, Buffalo.

Originally the carriage house served as a stable with horse stalls, a hay loft, and storage for a carriage, but soon became a garage with a service area for a car, and an upstairs apartment for a chauffeur. The carriage house also contained the boilers for the complex's heating system. Built between 1903 and 1905, the original structure was demolished in 1962, and rebuilt during the restoration between 2004 and 2007. The carriage house is at the north end of the complex, directly north of the Martin House porte-cochere, to the west of the conservatory.

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