martinhouseclr

117 2 // SITE HISTORY & EVOLUTION shows the front yard from Summit Avenue in this period. [Fig. 105] Several of the shrubs visible from the street appear to be more or less original to the 1904-05 plantings, yet are fully overgrown and lack definition or clarity of design. Furthermore, the plant material that was once growing within the Summit Avenue tree lawn in front of the house – a symbol of Wilhelm Miller’s 1915 Prairie Landscape treatise – had been removed. 251 While the Martins’ family complex and Wright’s architectural and landscape composition was being disassembled,the Gardener’s Cottage was deeded to private owners in 1942. The Barton house had already been purchased by a buyer named John Gelzer in 1937. 252 William Thorpe and his family seemed to stay in the garage at least up until 1942, as evidenced by family photos which show that the peony beds were suffocated with weeds and the fountain wall was barely visible under vine cover. [Fig. 106] With someone still inhabiting the property the turf grass was still mown. However, in 1945 Isabelle Martin, who since 1937 had been living at Graycliff and various Buffalo addresses, passed away, leaving the already faded core landscape of the Jewett property in desolate uncertainty. 251 It’s unclear when this plant material was removed as there are minimal photographs of the Barton front yard and tree lawn. It’s possible that they were removed early on in Martin’s tenure 252 National Historic Landmarks Program, Inventory Nomination Form: Darwin D. Martin House, Buffalo, Erie County, New York, National Park Service , United States Department of the Interior, Continuation Sheet, Significance, 3. Sebastian Tauriello After Isabelle’s death, Darwin R. Martin (her son), made efforts to preserve the house in some manner by looking for an alternate, even public, use for such a large structure, yet none could apparently be found. 253 With the property’s insurmountable tax burden, the ending days of the Great Depression still a specter on the economy, and the United States likely still distracted by World War II, it is perhaps expected that the Buffalo community missed such a vague opportunity. In 1946 the City of Buffalo took control of the property in a tax foreclosure sale and it was then purchased by Patrick Dwyer in 1947. However, the house remained empty from the period of Isabelle’s death to 1954 when a local architect named Sebastian Tauriello purchased the property. 254 The purchase of the property by Tauriello was both a blessing and a curse. Having saved the property from further deterioration, it is Tauriello that can be credited with assuring the house was not demolished or renovated beyond recognition. With mounting maintenance costs, most probably irrespective of any landscape needs, Tauriello subdivided the interior of the main house into three apartments. 255 He lived in the east side of the house, where the verandah 253 Edgar Tafel, Years with Frank Lloyd Wright: Apprentice to Genius, Courier Dover Publications, 1985, 92. 254 Martin House Restoration Corporation, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House Complex: Docent Manual, 2014 Edition 255 Ibid. Fig. 106 Relative of William Thorpe, in the driveway, looking north towards carriage house and green house c. 1942.