martinhouseclr

97 2 // SITE HISTORY & EVOLUTION wedding photos included the confirmed introduction (well-prior) of the Griffin-designed Summit Avenue shrub border, which appears to have been over 6 feet high in most places, with an undulating and naturalistic character that seemed to generally match that of the Floricycle periphery and the Barton front yard. According to photos, the border represented the species shown on the Griffin planting plan and it likely prevented visual access to and from the street along the entirety of the Summit lawn area. Towards October 1929 and the Depression If the June 1923 wedding of Dorothy led to the grounds being at their finest, particularly in terms of their maintenance, the period following was a time of stability. The grounds remained, despite some changes in plant material, spatially composed of evergreen and deciduous shade trees, strongly naturalistic shrub massings, various vine trimmed architectural features, and lavishly large and diverse perennial borders – as they always had. 225 Darwin D. Martin’s appreciation for the landscape, if not his devotion to its preservation, is expressed in his seemingly increasing role 225 Martin House Restoration Corporation, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House Complex: Docent Manual, 2014 Edition. Isabelle Martin’s displeasure of the darkness of the house was apparently exacerbated by a degenerative eye condition, which has been documented in multiple sources. in its maintenance. In 1926, the year Martin retires from the Larkin Company, he notes in his diary that he would spend his newly found free time pruning in the spring. 226 227 Martin also purchased the land along Lake Erie that would shortly become the family’s summer retreat. 228 The property, ultimately known as Graycliff, which was also designed by Wright, albeit with a more focused direction and appreciation for what Isabelle desired, became the focus of the Martins’ attention for the years leading up to its completion in 1928. The landscape at Graycliff also became in some measure associated with the most significant landscape changes to the Jewett Parkway property since the introduction of the Griffin-designed shrub border circa 1911. The changes to the landscape at this time were focused around the western boundary of the property, within and adjacent to the long narrow triangle of planting area bounding the driveway’s western edge. These alterations appear to include improvements to previously acquired property, such as the removal of evergreen trees (cedars) and other shrub/perennial plantings, the introduction of additional perennial gardens and turf areas, and, presumably, the construction of a long low retaining wall consisting of natural dolomitic limestone of the region. The mortar-set wall, running nearly 150 linear feet from the tall brick pier near the garage to 226 DDM, Memorandum, 29 June 1926, MFP-UB. The diary entry simply notes: “I ret’d.” 227 DDM, Memorandum, 29 May 1926, MFP-UB. 228 DDM, Memorandum, 19 April 1926, MFP-UB. the porte-cochere, was evidently constructed to take up grade differences between the adjacent properties of 125 Jewett and the 27-foot wide strip of land seemingly associated early on with 143 Jewett. 229 Considering that no photographs of the courtyard area from a perspective looking east (wherein the photographer would be standing off-property) seem to exist before the mid-to-late 1920s, it seems likely that despite ownership of the land, no improvements were made to it until this point. 230 The first landscape alternations to be made, either along with or following the construction of the wall, were the removal of any existing shrubs along the driveway (believed to be three Willow species, Winterberry, and Yew) and the introduction of perennials along the top and the bottom of the wall. This meant clearing out understory from existing cedars (Juniperous virginiana), Scotch pine and Eastern Hemlock, which were planted relatively densely along the driveway border. The perennial border along the base of the wall appears to have been at least 6 feet wide, wherein the remaining 20 feet of the parcel was to be taken up, at least in part, by lawn or a lawn 229 No documentation of this purchase is noted by Martin aside from the earlier “garden lot” fronting Jewett. However, the 1918 F.K. Wing Survey provides strong evidence that this land was owned by Martin at least a decade prior to these western boundary landscape alterations. 230 The first photographs of the stone wall or from this seemingly off-property viewpoint were dated to be the mid-to- late 1920s based on tree / vegetation growth, and hat / clothing styles (William Thorpe photos). It is possible that the stone wall was constructed prior to this period, yet for the first several years, a pre-existing wood picket fence (associated with 143 Jewett) ran along the property boundary.