martinhouseclr

42 DARWIN D. MARTIN HOUSE // CULTURAL LANDSCAPE REPORT the incredible diversity and assortment of plant material ultimately placed at the Martin House as markedly Griffin, perhaps resembling the density of Griffin’s own family home in Elmhurst, Illinois, nicknamed by a family friend as ‘The Jungle.’ 95 96 Whatever Martin thought of the shrub list, the quantity of plantings or the lack of any sort of planting plan, Martin did not delay on the plantings around the Barton House. [Fig. 25, 26] Almost aligned with the very day Martin notes to Wright of the “economical necessity” of having a traditional greenhouse in addition to the conservatory, for propagating next spring’s plantings, the plants around the Barton House were installed without the plan: 97 We have coaxed so long for the planting plan (and we have been assured we would have it before needed) that we gave up expecting it, and as the shrubs were drying up we planted them Saturday and enclose this photograph showing how they were planted. If the photograph is meager, remember that the planting plan was meager too. We planted none south of the Barton wall or house. Hebditch used his own judgment in setting them and remembered your instructions to put the tall growing ones on 95 Ibid., 30 May 2014. 96 Christopher Vernon, “’Expressing natural conditions with maximum possibility’: the American landscape art of Water Burley Griffin,” Journal of Garden History, 15:1, 22. 97 DDM-FLW, 29 October 2901, Trans. Jack Quinan 2003, WMP-UB. the north side, and used nearly all on the front lawn. 98 Concerning the outstanding greenhouse desired by Martin, which he intended to purchase principally prefabricated from a greenhouse manufacturer, Wright asked Martin for copies of the proposed plans so he could “put a little architecture on it.” 99 Martin lays out in much detail the possible manufactures and the various features and pricing of each potential greenhouse. 100 By December he has chosen to proceed with a greenhouse by the Pierson- Sefton Company of Jersey City, NJ. The structure was shipped to Buffalo on December 24 and constructed in February of 1905. It included a heavily sloped exposed grade, gaining foundation exposure from east to west, and masonry foundation features on the south side of the foundation consistent with the brick masonry of the house. The masonry plans from Pierson- Sefton do not feature this detail but photographs show that it existed. The cold frame known to exist on the south side of the greenhouse is also not shown on the blueprints. [Fig. 27] From the Barton House planting installation through the short time remaining of 1904, the 98 DDM-FLW, 31 October 1904, Trans. Zakery Steele 2014, WMP-UB. 99 Martin House Restoration Corporation, The Greenhouse for the Darwin D. Martin House Complex—Buffalo, NY, Revised March 2014, Susana Tejada. 100 DDM-Edward M May, 24 November 1904, Trans. Jack Quinan 2003, WMP-UB. Fig. 24.1 Period advertisement for Shady Hill Nursery, from American Homes and Gardens, February 1906.