martinhouseclr

128 DARWIN D. MARTIN HOUSE // CULTURAL LANDSCAPE REPORT 1967 – PRESENT UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO OWNERSHIP & MHRC ACQUISITION / RESTORATION Public Ownership What remained of the Martin House and its landscape gained new life beginning in 1967 when the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, purchased the house from Tauriello to be used as the University president’s house. Having returned it to a single-family residence, then University President Martin Meyerson and his wife, Margy, lived in the house for three years. Also circa 1967, University at Buffalo professor Eric Larrabee and his wife, architect Eleanor Larrabee, purchased the Barton House. 262 263 Restoration work on the main house was begun with the University’s hiring of Edgar Tafel, a former student of Frank Lloyd Wright’s. 264 262 Martin House Restoration Corporation, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House Complex: Docent Manual, 2014 Edition 263 The Statement of Significance within the 1986 National Historic Landmark nomination form for the main Martin House (it does not include the Barton House) notes that the Larrabee’s purchased the house in 1962, rather than 1967. 264 National Register of Historic Places, Inventory Nomination Photographs from 1969 show that many of Sebastian Tauriello’s site and landscape additions remained during the University President’s tenure. Floricycle shrub remnants are also clearly evident, and actually appear to have either grown larger, been allowed to grow out (not sheared), and likely having been supplemented to (unknowingly) recreate part of the intent in the original Wright/Griffin design – a surrounding terminal view from the verandah and increased separation from the street corner. [Fig. 125] Without the need for public access to Tauriello’s former basement architectural office, there would have been an increased desire to once again screen the verandah by private owners. The access to the basement remained, however, and the new shrubs planted around the Floricycle appear to have severed physical and visual access from the walkway to the interior of the Floricycle remnants. New plantings were also introduced around this time, including a thick screen of up to twenty Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) around the remaining rear yard of the main house in an “L” shape, bookended with what appears to be a Douglass Fir and a Hemlock. 265 They were clearly desired to screen the adjacent apartment parking area. Ornamental grasses Form: Darwin D. Martin House, George Barton House, Gardener’s Cottage, 3. 265 These, and many plants form the UB ownership period, are identified on an “Inventory of Existing Site Conditions” map, believed to have been prepared along with a Historic Structures Report, authored by Buffalo-based HHL Architects in 1990. The map, which includes a plant inventory, has no other visible title block, date, or attributions. (miscanthus) were also planted along the main entry walk parallel to the house, combined with what appear to be a bed of mixed annuals near the front steps. A number of small annual beds appeared around the house during this period. Tulip bulbs and other small shrubs were planted at the base of the verandah. Day lilies also begin to appear during this period – notably in areas of the Floricycle and around the front of the Barton House. [Fig. 126] Beginning in 1970, the University no longer utilized the property as the President’s house; however, they retained ownership and the house was used as an archives office and a reception center. 266 Very little documentation exists of the landscape from 1970 to 1981, and what is visible in 1981 indicates a relative stasis through the preceding decade. Dead elm trees were removed, and existing shrubs were sheared, but no new plant material additions or site alterations are clearly evident. In fact, not a single street tree is visible along the historic property frontages of Summit Avenue or Jewett Parkway – which is no doubt the result of the devastation caused by Dutch Elm Disease beginning in the late 1950s. If replacement street trees are present in the early 1980s, they are not visible in the visual records. It should be noted that the historic record of the 1980s brings the first known and collected photographs of the front of the Gardener’s Cottage, and only the second showing the structure at all - though the photos of lawn are 266 Martin House Restoration Corporation, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House Complex: Docent Manual, 2014 Edition