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40-541: Graycliff was the summer home of Isabelle Reidpath Martin (1869–1945) and her husband, Buffalo entrepreneur Darwin D. Martin (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

80-510: A bluff overlooking Lake Erie. The largest of the three buildings at Graycliff, the Isabelle R. Martin House, is transparent, allowing views of the lake through the house. Terraces and cantilevered balconies enhance the organic nature of the buildings. Martin was a millionaire when the great stock market crash occurred. Overnight, he lost almost everything. When Wright's autobiography came out, Martin

120-642: A collection of some of the finest gardens in the country. Shipman took strongly to the Cornish style, one that focused on geometric patterns and colonial plantings, and with it created her own style – a style which did not go unnoticed. Shipman's colleague and fellow member of the Cornish Art Colony , Charles A. Platt , was an artist and architect known for his interest in Italian gardens . Platt recognized Shipman's talents. He did not know much about horticulture , but

160-420: A member of the first generation to break into the largely male occupation. Commenting about the male dominated field to The New York Times in 1938, she said "before women took hold of the profession, landscape architects were doing what I call cemetery work." Shipman preferred to look on her career of using plantings as if she "were painting pictures as an artist." Little of her work remains today because of

200-577: A picking garden. Although the Martin family lost much of its fortune due to the 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,

240-509: A pioneering advance in business record-keeping at the time. In 1890, Darwin D. Martin replaced Hubbard as corporate secretary of Larkin Company. One of his assignments was to find an architect to design a new administrative building for the expanding company. His brother, William Martin, who was living in Chicago, recommended a young architect named Frank Lloyd Wright. While at Larkin, Martin created

280-409: A playwright attending Harvard named Louis Shipman . They left school after one year, married, and moved to Plainfield, New Hampshire , in the Cornish Art Colony , which included Maxfield Parrish and Augustus Saint-Gaudens . The colony is said to have been landscaped by artists who were not architects, but had artistically trained eyes and an awareness for the aesthetics of repose, which gave rise to

320-405: A pond. This, and a substantial one-acre Wild Garden at Longue Vue House and Gardens, are the only surviving examples of Shipman's Wild Gardens. The Causeway is now called Tregaron Estate and is open to the public. Seen in many ways as Platt's protégé, Shipman was asked on various occasions to rework one of his gardens, including Platt's first major commission, High Court Archived 2016-08-22 at

360-502: A private high school for gifted children in Buffalo, named after 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

400-433: 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

440-410: A stroke in 1935 at age 70. Isabelle died in Buffalo in 1945. Ellen Biddle Shipman Ellen Biddle Shipman ( née   Ellen Biddle ; November 5, 1869 – March 27, 1950) was an American landscape architect known for her formal gardens and lush planting style. Along with Beatrix Farrand and Marian Cruger Coffin , she dictated the style of the time and strongly influenced landscape design as

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480-506: A unique card ledger system for tracking sales and maintaining accounts which is utilized by many corporations, in various formats, to this day. Martin retired from the Larkin Company in 1925, and in 1929, construction began on Graycliff . Martin and Wright formed a lifelong friendship due to their similar outlooks on family. Although John D. Larkin , the company president, was unimpressed by Wright, Martin convinced Larkin to give Wright

520-792: Is listed on the National Register of Historic Places . In November 2024, the Graycliff Conservancy began construction on a new visitor center. As part of the new construction plan, the estate temporarily closed and is expected to resume tours in March of 2025. The new visitor center is due to be completed in 2026, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s design for the Graycliff estate. Darwin D. Martin Darwin Denice Martin (October 25, 1865 – December 12, 1935)

560-636: Is often named one of her finest works. Shipman created her own residential gardens all over the United States, collaborating with many architects. Her planting plans softened the bones of geometric architecture with planting designs that were muscular enough to speak for themselves. She once said, "Remember that the design of your place is its skeleton upon which you will later plant to make your picture. Keep that skeleton as simple as possible." Shipman's gardens often appeared in magazines, including House Beautiful . In 1933, House & Garden named her

600-774: The Wayback Machine . Located across the road from Platt's own house in Cornish, New Hampshire, Anson Goodyear hired Shipman to revitalize the plantings and reconfigure the garden walls. Her other significant gardens include the Bayou Bend Gardens, Longue Vue Gardens in New Orleans, Stan Hywet Gardens , the Graycliff Estate (now under restoration), Stranahan Estate (also under reconstruction), Middleton House and Robert M. Hanes House at Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Duke University 's Sarah P. Duke Gardens , which

640-592: The " Blue Sky Mausoleum ," at Darwin Martin's request, but because of the family's declining fortunes, it was not built until 2004, when Forest Lawn administrators erected the Blue Sky monument in honor of Martin and Wright. Some of Martin's papers survive in the collection of the Buffalo History Museum . In 1889, Martin married Isabelle Reidpath (1869–1945) and remained married to her until his death in 1935. Martin and Isabelle had two children. Martin died of

680-399: The "Dean of Women Landscape Architects". She lectured widely, and completed over 400 projects. Her archives are at Cornell University . Because much of her work includes labor-intensive plantings and borders, many have not survived. However, it was because of these borders that she was able to connect with her female clientele. Her intent was to provide privacy and a place for interaction with

720-408: The Larkin Company, as all office work was done by Larkin himself. One of the figures in the company who Martin admired was Elbert Hubbard , an executive. Martin worked ferociously, putting in 361 workdays a year. His efforts enabled the company to expand and rival Sears and Roebuck Co. He is credited with converting all the company customer records from cumbersome ledgers to efficient card catalogs,

760-568: 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. The smallest building of

800-510: 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

840-628: 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

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880-470: The death of his mother when he was six. Martin's family was separated, and Martin, who was the youngest of five, was forced to part ways with all his siblings except for his brother Frank. The two Martin brothers went to New York City and Darwin obtained a job selling soap. Martin then came by himself to Buffalo to work in the Larkin Company as the first, and at that time the only, hired office-worker of

920-505: 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

960-446: 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. The Foster House was originally designed as a garage, with an apartment above for the chauffeur 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,

1000-650: The job. By this time Martin had built a considerable fortune and asked Wright to design a house for him as well. This project would become the historic Darwin D. Martin House . Wright had complete freedom and an almost unlimited budget to execute it. Isabelle Reidpath Martin, Darwin's wife, was unhappy with the house due to the limited light it received, as she was nearly blind. Darwin and Isabelle and their two children, however, would live there for over 20 years. During this time Martin's fortune continued to rise, while Wright, with whom he kept in constant contact, fell on troubled times. Martin began to lend Wright money, becoming

1040-755: The labor-intensive style of her designs, but there exist preserved spaces, including the Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University , often cited as one of the most beautiful American college campuses. She is buried in Plainfield, New Hampshire , in Gilkey Cemetery, near Brook Place, her estate there. Ellen was born in Philadelphia , and she spent her childhood in Texas and the Arizona territory . Her father, Colonel James Biddle,

1080-516: The largest benefactor behind Wright's Taliesin. At one point Wright solicited Martin to become his business partner. Martin declined, having just retired from the Larkin Company. During a fallow period in Wright's career, Martin commissioned him to design a summer home, Graycliff, stressing that this house was to conform to Isabelle's desires. The result was one of Wright's most important mid-career designs, taking extensive advantage of Graycliff's location on

1120-438: 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

1160-514: 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. Graycliff is a complex of three buildings integrated within an 8.5-acre (34,000 m) landscape. It is situated high on a bluff with views of Lake Erie across to Ontario . In Wright's Organic Architecture style, are set amidst extensive grounds and gardens also designed by Wright. The largest building,

1200-421: 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

1240-529: The stone mansion was demolished in 1979, a few elements of the landscape work survive. Shipman also designed the adjoining Cooper estate of Heathcote, which is extant today in private hands. A similar task was undertaken at the Gwinn Estate in Cleveland , where she was asked by Platt to aid him and Warren H. Manning in their garden designs. It was finished in 1912, one of her earliest projects, and one where her job

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1280-597: 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 support 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 , Wright's first major commercial project. Martin

1320-604: Was a career Army officer, stationed on the western frontier. When the safety of his family was threatened, he moved them to the McGowan farm in Elizabeth, New Jersey . She attended boarding school in Baltimore, Maryland , where her interests in the arts emerged and by her twenties she had already started drawing garden designs. When she entered the Harvard annex, Radcliffe College , she met

1360-609: Was also heavily influenced by Gertrude Jekyll 's brilliant use of borders, as well as memories of her grandparents’ farm. By 1920 she was working independently of Platt, though they continued to collaborate on his residential projects. Among Shipman's earliest collaborations with Platt was the Cooperstown, New York estate of Fynmere in 1913, owned by the Cooper family on the edge of the village. This project, for descendants of William Cooper , provided significant visibility for Shipman. While

1400-524: Was an early 20th-century New York State businessman best known for the house he commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design. Darwin Martin was born on October 25, 1865, in Bouckville, New York , an upstate New York community. His siblings included Louis Franklin ("Frank") Martin, William Martin, Delta Martin (who married George F. Barton ), and Maude Martin Huffer. Martin had a difficult childhood, starting with

1440-517: 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. 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 (1925) and Fallingwater (1936) using stone. Wright believed stone to be

1480-437: 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 40 miles (64 km) to the north. The extensive 8.5 acres (34,000 m) of grounds and gardens were also designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, with one of

1520-566: Was highly respected and thought of as "the man who could design both house and garden for a country estate", for he had recently made a trip to Italy and wrote a book about the gardens there. By the time the Shipmans divorced in 1910, Ellen Shipman was well on her way to establishing herself as a talented garden designer nationwide. She and Platt played off their mutual requirements: Platt needed Ellen for her knowledge of horticulture and Ellen needed Platt for his knowledge of drafting and design. Shipman

1560-575: Was largely planting oriented, filling the designs of Platt with lush flower arrangements. The courtyard gardens of Manhattan's Astor Court Building were another Platt-Shipman collaboration. Platt and Shipman's 1915 design for the Parmelee estate, The Causeway, in Washington D.C. included a Wild Garden surrounding the mansion and formal gardens. It featured mature trees, large clumps of plants such as rhododendron, walking and riding paths, stone bridges and

1600-491: Was so impoverished he could not afford to buy a $ 6.00 copy. In a letter Wright said that of the mere six copies he was receiving, Darwin Martin would receive one if no one else. The money that Martin had lent Wright, over seventy thousand dollars, was never repaid. After a series of strokes, Darwin Martin died in 1935 at the age of 70. He is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery . Wright designed his only cemetery monument,

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