November 10, 1994: Vol26n10: Apartment purchase vital step in Martin House restoration

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Bureau Staff
Robert Kresse, chair of the Martin House Restoration Corporation
(MHRC), announced Saturday that the not-for-profit corporation has
acquired title to three apartment buildings at 135 Jewett Parkway,
which will allow the organization to restore the entire Darwin D.
Martin House residential compound.
	The MHRC now holds title to all of the property that comprised
the original compound.
	The compound, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, originally
included the Martin House, the George Barton House at 118 Summit Ave.,
which was donated earlier this year to the corporation by a consortium
of Buffalo businesses (The Buffalo News, Rich Products and M&T Bank),
and several outbuildings that were demolished in the 1950s to make way
for the apartment buildings.
	A national historic landmark since 1986, the Martin House is
being restored as a house museum by a consortium of the University at
Buffalo, the MHRC and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation
and Historic Preservation. When conservation/restoration work is
completed, the house will be operated by the MHRC as part of the New
York State historic site system.
	Kresse announced the purchase of the apartment buildings at a
press conference in the Martin House attended by Joan K. Davidson,
state commissioner of parks, recreation and historic preservation, and
Bruno Freschi, dean of the UB School of Architecture and Planning.
	"It was essential that we acquire title to the entire
property, in order to realize the vision of a fully restored Wright
masterpiece and raise the balance of the funds necessary for
restoration," Kresse noted.
	"The plan to fully restore this magnificent work of
architecture to its original glory offers a great incentive to both
government and private donors to help us raise those funds."
	The apartments were purchased by the MHRC for approximately
$700,000 from owner Juliane Bukaty. Kresse said that developers Otto
and Stephen Day and Donald Clark originally held a contract to
purchase the buildings and turn the 20 apartment units into
condominiums, but "generously allowed the corporation to take over the
contract."
	He said the corporation will continue to rent the apartments
until the restoration of the main house is complete, a process
expected to take several years.
	Once the main house is restored, the MHRC plans to demolish
two of the apartment buildings and reconstruct the conservatory, a
covered walkway or pergola, a garage-carriage house and stables.
Elaborate gardens that once graced the grounds also will be
reestablished.
	The Barton House, built for Darwin Martin's sister and her
family, also will be restored and reincorporated into the residential
complex.
	"This effort," Kresse said, "is directed toward restoring the
Martin House as the key element in the development and promotion of
Western New York's architectural tourism industry, which, in turn,
offers us new opportunities with which to advance our regional
economy."
	Davidson cited the purchase of the apartment complex as "an
important step in the restoration of the Darwin Martin property."
	"The state parks agency," she said, "looks forward to the time
when we can invite the public to see this architectural gem in its
original surroundings as our first 20th-century state historic site."
	Freschi emphasized that the acquisition of the apartment
buildings and the Barton House "insures our grand vision of completing
Wright's masterpiece."
	He is directing a UB graduate architecture studio in the
development of a feasibility study for the adaptive reuse of the third
and smallest apartment building as an interpretive center, gift shop
and offices. The redesigned building will reflect Wright's design
principles, he said, and will be architecturally compatible with the
rest of the compound.
	"Our architectural heritage enriches the quality of life in
Western New York and could also enhance our economic base," Kresse
said.
	"We've waited a long time to be able to tell the world of the
rich trove of architectural gems located in Buffalo and throughout
Western New York," he said, citing Louis Sullivan's Guaranty Building
and the main buildings at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center designed by
H.H. Richardson, among others.
	"Now that the title to the last section of the original Darwin
Martin property is in our hands," Kresse added, "it's only a matter of
time before the Darwin Martin complex is established as a keystone of
our architectural tourism industry."
	He also pointed to current efforts to restore the late
19th-century Roycroft Inn in East Aurora as an important first step in
the creation of a Western New York "architectural heritage trail." The
inn was built by Elbert Hubbard, who had important connections to both
Darwin Martin and to the international Arts and Crafts Movement, which
greatly influenced Wright's work.
	Darwin Martin was the business prot
g
 of Hubbard, who, like Martin, worked for the Buffalo-based Larkin
Soap Co., then a major American mail-order firm. Hubbard, an
iconoclastic author, editor and publisher, later founded the Roycroft
Community of artisans in Western New York, which was grounded in the
principles of William Morris's arts and crafts community in England.
	Kresse pointed out that at one time, the Roycroft Community
employed more than 500 artisans, and its products -- handcrafted
furniture, books and art objects -- were sold throughout the world and
were featured products in leading upscale American department stores.
	The inn, now being restored to its unique ambiance, will
reopen in the spring of 1995 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the
founding of the Roycroft Community. A major exhibition devoted to the
Roycroft Community and Hubbard opened last weekend at the Memorial Art
Gallery in Rochester. It will be followed shortly by an exhibition
titled, "Roycroft Desk-top," at Buffalo's Burchfield-Penney Art
Center.