The Graycliff estate was designed by

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

in 1926, and built between 1926 and 1931. It is approximately 17 miles southwest of downtown

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

, at 6472 Old Lake Shore Road in the

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

of Highland-on-the-Lake, with a mailing address of

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...

. Situated on a bluff overlooking

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...

with sweeping views of downtown Buffalo and the

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shore, ''Note:'' This includes an
''Accompanying photographs''
/ref> it is one of the most ambitious and extensive summer estates Wright designed.Arlene Sanderson & Jack Quinan, ''Wright Sites'', pp.84-85, Princeton Architectural Press; 2001 It is now fully restored and operates as a historic house museum, open for guided tours year round (with reduced activity during the winter). There is also a summer Market at Graycliff, free and open to the public on select Thursday evenings. Graycliff Conservancy is run by Executive Director Anna Kaplan, who was hired in 2019.

History

Graycliff was the summer home of Isabelle Reidpath Martin (1869–1945) and her husband, Buffalo entrepreneur

Darwin D. Martin Darwin Denice Martin (October 25, 1865 – December 12, 1935) was an early 20th-century New York State businessman best known for the house he commissioned from Frank Lloyd Wright. Early life Darwin Martin was born on October 25, 1865, in Bouc ...

(1865–1935). Graycliff was the second of two complexes Frank Lloyd Wright designed for the couple, the first being the Martin House Complex, their city residence. By the time of Graycliff's commission, Wright and the Martins had been personal friends as well as clients for over twenty years. Between the time of the completion of the Martin House Complex and the construction of Graycliff grew a great long-term friendship, to the extent that the Martins provided financial assistance and other supportJack Quinan, ''Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House'', p.216, Princeton Architectural Press; 2004 to Wright as his career unfolded. In the early years of their long relationship, Darwin Martin was actively involved with selecting Frank Lloyd Wright as the architect for the

Larkin Administration Building The Larkin Building was an early 20th century building. It was designed in 1903 by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1904-1906 for the Larkin Soap Company of Buffalo, New York. The five story dark red brick building used pink tinted mortar and ut ...

, Wright's first major commercial project. Martin was an executive with the Larkin Company, and Wright also designed houses in Buffalo for fellow Larkin Company executives William R. Heath and Walter V. Davidson. Isabelle R. Martin was the client of record for Graycliff, and it was designed by Wright for her pleasure.Brendan Gill, ''Many Masks'', p.320, Da Capo Press; 1998 Graycliff is one of only five of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs that were built between 1925 and 1935, and the only Wright-designed structure built between

Taliesin Taliesin ( , ; 6th century AD) was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the '' Book of Taliesin''. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts ...

(1925) and

Fallingwater Fallingwater is a house designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 in the Laurel Highlands of southwest Pennsylvania, about southeast of Pittsburgh in the United States. It is built partly over a waterfall on Bear Run in the Mill R ...

(1936) using stone. Wright believed stone to be the only true building material and may be why he insisted the Martins incorporate it at Graycliff. Graycliff is considered to be one of Wright's most important mid-career works in his Organic Style.

Design

Graycliff is a complex of three buildings integrated within an landscape. It is situated high on a bluff with views of

across to

. In Wright's

Organic Architecture Organic architecture is a philosophy of architecture which promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural world. This is achieved through design approaches that aim to be sympathetic and well-integrated with a site, so buildings, furni ...

style, are set amidst extensive grounds and gardens also designed by Wright. The largest building, the main "Isabelle R. Martin House," is perhaps most remarkable for its two stone veneered sections framing a central pavilion-like center of transparent glass walls, allowing visitors to actually see through the building itself to the lake beyond, revolutionary for a 1926 design. It also features spacious cantilevered balconies, expansive terraces, and "ribbons" of windows that allow the experience of nature from within and through the house. On especially clear days the spray of Niagara Falls is visible through the framed opening created by the cantilevered upper bridge and the stone veneered massing at each end of the home. Foster House, Graycliff

The Foster House was originally designed as a garage, with an apartment above for the

chauffeur A chauffeur is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine. Originally, such drivers were often personal employees of the vehicle owner, but this has changed to speciali ...

and his family. In 1929 the Martins owned a Pierce-Arrow touring car as well as a Detroit Electric car. After their first summer in residence, the Martins asked Wright to alter and expand the building. Once complete, the Martins' daughter Dorothy, together with her husband James Foster and their children Margaret and Darwin Martin Foster, spent many happy summers in residence. Like the Martin House, the Foster House has strong horizontal lines echoing the lake beyond, cantilevered balconies, and numerous windows. Fountain, Graycliff

The smallest building of the complex is known as the Heat Hut. Like the other two buildings, it is constructed of stone found at the lake's edge, ochre stucco, and a red cedar shingle roof. Garden walls, composed of the same stone and stucco as the Foster and Martin Houses, enhance the horizontal planes of the architecture. The gardens and grounds feature water elements designed by Wright, including a porte-cochère that extends from Martin House, cantilevering beyond its stone pier supports over a stone basin from which water flows into a large irregularly shaped pool. This was intended to create an illusion of the lake flowing through the house. On the west side, a broad esplanade connects the terrace to the cliff and lake. The esplanade was designed to carry water, pumped from Lake Erie, down its length and over the bluffs, completing the illusion of water flowing through. Deemed financially extravagant, this feature was halted after only the esplanade itself was completed. Other architectural features of the landscape include a sunken garden, a hidden garden, and stone walls in a "waterfall" pattern. Not surprisingly, it was Darwin Martin who first introduced Wright to Niagara Falls, less than to the north. The extensive of grounds and gardens were also designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, with one of the few, if not only, landscape designs in his own hand. These include a tennis court designed by Wright, as well as trees and shrubs designed to complement the architecture. Additional significant design-work was done by Ellen Biddle Shipman, one of the early and renowned women landscape architects, and one of the creators of the Arts & Crafts and American Craftsman style landscape design, supplementing those of Wright with colorful flowers and a picking garden.

Restoration

Although the Martin family lost much of its fortune due to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depression and was forced to abandon the city house in 1937, they kept Graycliff, and returned annually until 1943. The property was purchased from the family by the Piarists, a Roman Catholic teaching order, in 1951. The Piarist Fathers, from Hungary, established a boarding school on the grounds, as well as Calasanctius, a private high school for gifted children in Buffalo, named after Calasanctius, the order's founder. Although they added two structures to Wright's original design, all Wright-designed buildings were left intact. Eventually enrollment dwindled and the schools closed; the number of priests in residence also declined dramatically. Finally in late 1997, the Piarists decided they could no longer afford to maintain the property, and put it up for sale. Soon after, a group of concerned individuals purchased the property, which was threatened with destruction due to its prime lakeside location and attractiveness to private developers. The group formed the non-profit Graycliff Conservancy in order to buy the property, restore it to its original condition, and open it to the public. This effort, aided by volunteers from throughout the community, has undertaken extensive restoration, both to remove the non-Wright additions and to restore the nearly ninety-year-old buildings, and has created a schedule of public tours. The Graycliff Conservancy is the recipient of a Save America's Treasures grant from the US Department of the Interior, and has received many awards for its work. Graycliff is now a New York State Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Gallery

File:Isabelle R. Martin House (4).JPG, Rear of Graycliff File:View from Isabelle's Balcony, Graycliff.jpg, View from Isabelle's balcony File:South Terrace, Graycliff.jpg, South Terrace File:Stone Walls, Graycliff.jpg, Stone walls at Graycliff File:View thru Kitchen Window, Graycliff.jpg, View through the kitchen window File:Diamond Window, Graycliff.jpg, Diamond window

Other buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Buffalo area

(demolished) *Darwin D. Martin House *William R. Heath House *Walter V. Davidson House *Blue Sky Mausoleum *

References

External links

* *member of the Great Lakes Seaway Trail * https://martinhouse.org/wright-in-wny/ * https://www.visitbuffaloniagara.com/wright-road-trip/
Wright Now in Buffalo
, information about Buffalo's architecture
Podcast
of remarks about Buffalo architecture by Dr. Neil Levine, author of ''The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright'', and Emmet Blakeney Gleason, Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University {{Frank Lloyd Wright Museums in Buffalo, New York Culture of Buffalo, New York Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Historic house museums in New York (state) Frank Lloyd Wright buildings Houses completed in 1926 Museums in Erie County, New York Houses in Erie County, New York National Register of Historic Places in Buffalo, New York