Buffalo Rising Online

This wright building appears to have no or few windows. Its interesting but not sure how livable it would be with so few windows.

And how could someone have a tudor home in shades of blue and light blue...what is this the residence of smurfetta

I wonder if many people liked Wright, in person. They didn't seem to flock around to get him to work for them; I think that if he hadn't made a friend of Darwin Martin, Wright might have starved to death (okay, that's exaggerating) ...

btw, I hope Steel turned around & took pics of the Chemical No.5 , too :)

Hi, Queeneyes,

I guess you haven't been reading your Western New York Heritage magazine, another Buffalo treasure, because this design was featured in the Spring 1999 issue. It can be read at the Central Library or purchased from WNY Heritage Press:

http://wnyheritagepress.org/magazine/pastissues/spring99.htm

BIA,

I had forgotten all about that issue of WNY Heritage Mag. I took your advise and went back to look at it. That issue is packed full of great unbuilt WNY stuff. The Larkin Row House project designed by right would have been a great addition to the city. One interesting thing. That issue features all the unrealized Wright projects in WNY. One of them, Blue Sky, has since been built.

What a fun post, thanks. St. Catherine's is a gem. I believe the street goes through one of the gates to the old Albright estate. The front gate is now a private street called Queen Anne's Gate (on West Ferry). There are cobbles underneath the blacktop on St. Catherine's (what a street!).

Queeneyes,

Glad you like the Larkin Rowhouses. Someone calls for them to be built in the summer issue of Buffalo Spree. :)

I think that if he hadn't made a friend of Darwin Martin, Wright might have starved to death (okay, that's exaggerating) ...

No, it's not, actually. Wright was very hard to deal with as a person or an architect, and he 'borrowed' considerible sums from Martin before Martin died.

You might like Wright's designs (I do), but the truth is, he was a total prick. I highly recommend Frank Lloyd Wright's Buffalo, to premiere on Monday, Spetember 4th, on PBS- 'check local listing for details', as they say.

It was produced by our own WNED, and really tells the story of these two men, Wright and Martin. It's quite a captivating tale.

Well, I for one hope that Buffalo continues the trend of building its unbuilt and/or demolished buildings especially considering the crap that is getting built now.

Its odd how a city that is marketing itself as an architectural center cannot build anything of substantial value (B-P and HealthNow are perfect examples)

But there is still the A-K expansion which Im hoping for it to emulate Milwaukee and located on the waterfront, there is still a new convention center and a new multi-modal station so there are still possibilities and I hope that companies and people look at older designs as one possible alternative when making decisions of what to build.

The Westside Rowing Club could have chosen a contemporary or modern or cheap structure....but there is no arguing how building an older design adds to the community. In many ways it was an equal in not better choice for our community...and its a choice that should be considered more!

Unfortunately, many of us don't have access to the issue of WNY Heritage mentioned above. Steel, could you provide more information on unbuilt Wright designs in Buffalo? I'm certainly very interested in the row houses. Where would they have been built and why didn't it happen? Thanks in advance for any elaboration you can provide.

L- what do you mean by A-K and B-P? British Petroleum???

I think he probably means Albright Knox and Burchfield Penny, ie the museums.

I'm not as eager as L is to continue to build Wright's designs. There has been some debate reported in the Buffalo News among architectual buffs as the the authenticity of building from Wright's unfinished plans and/or modifying them (e.g., Blue Sky's modification of building materials). However, most of all, I think Buffalo also needs to look forward architecturally. I can't wait to see Uniland's design for Gates Circle. Buffalo needs new exciting architecture to complement its treasure of architectural achievements.

Brox - I tend to agree that building unbuilt structures is kinda cheap and kitschy, but for some reason in my thinking this applies more to personal homes than other structures. For example, I'd never want this other Martin house to be built from plans but I love that the Boathouse is being built. I guess I haved a sense that the boathouse is something so unique and different that it deserves to be built. I can't the say same about the gas station (there already is an original one still standing in MN). And one day I would love the Larkin Admin to be rebuilt, and the next I would rather it be left in the past.

It's a tough issue to figure out.

John in Brookline and all other out-of-towners,

You do indeed have acess to the article in Western NY Heritage. Print out the link and contact your local public library. Ask them to get you a photocopy of the article via Interlibrary Loan. They'll want to verify the dates, volume numbers, author, title, etc. of the article and magazine.

It'll take maybe a week and you'll pay nominal photocopy charges. This has been a standard service in public and academic libraries for decades.

i may be seeing things, but the unbuilt design for ms. larkin appears to have a lot in common with the south elevation of the nathan moore house at 333 forest avenue in oak park. it was built in 1895 in the english tudor style but redesigned by wright and rebuilt following a 1922 fire, so the timeframe appears to line up. see http://oprf.com/flw/index-walk.html.

This is very similar to the tudor-style Nathan Moore house in Oak Park. While the Moore house was built near the turn of the century, the residence suffered a fire in the 20's. Wright was recalled to remodel the house after the disaster, and sure enough it looks just like the proposed Martin house seen in these pictures. This was one Wright's houses that is heavily influenced by Asian themes. As for not being a "liveable" house because of the windows; Wright made it a point to incorporate nature into the home, so I am sure there would have been ample ambient light. Perhaps the blueprints for Martin's daughter's house was part of the Wasmuth Portfolio. I have yet to see a copy of this (written in German), but it holds many lithographs of his completed, and unrealized, projects in Buffalo. The Boathouse, originally for Wisconsin, was part of this collection as well.

Wow....As I was writing my post, somebody actually beat me to it. At least we are on the same page.

My apologies, the Wasmuth came eaarlier in Wright's career. The row/boathouse was part of a much smaller grouping of blueprints, which Wright considered his best designs, that he showed and displayed in Europe in the thirties.

I'd love to see the side and rear elevations, to see how the window.transparency issue is addressed there. It's unlike any of Wright's other projects; I like it.

Smurfette? This house on the corner of St. Catherine's and Cleveland is gorgeous and the color is perfect. If you have ever seen it "in person," you would not think "Smurf."

P.S. The gentleman who lives in the house is the nicest man in the world. And, he has always done his own gardening & yard work.

Cathy, sorry but blue is not the best color for tudors and it really screams SMURFETTE! LOL....to me anyway even though he may be an extremely nice person...blue and tudor dont mix in my book...just my opinion.

The 333 house mentioned by Stephen is strikingly beautiful but notice that it has windows that the blueprints above lack which while Im sure it would be striking wouldnt seem to be very livable.

Also anyone notice how strikingly similar HS Adams House on Augusta Blvd is to the Martin House.

and lastly, I here people flipping back and forth between not wanting to reuild old designs and those supporting it. I understand both sides of the argument but there really shouldnt be any argument at all. The goal should be quality designs, quality materials and the value a building can add to the community not the age of the design. Id rather have a Sullivan or a Calatrava than a dumbed down HealthNow that belongs in a suburban office park than in an urban skyline.

By the way. I think that the image shown here of the Wright desgn is of the back side not the street side.

St. Margaret's Court is a cool urban Cul-De-Sac. It is true that this tract of land used to be John Albright's Estate. Being a avid historian of the Buffalo Fire Department, I have always loved Chemical No. 5. It actually had ceased being a Chemical Company in the 1920's and was designated Engine Company 37. Engine Co. 37 was based out of this historic firehouse until 1966 when they moved with Engine 11/Ladder 4(Quarters are now Rich's Bakery Outlet on Niagara Street), onto Rhode Island and Chenango Street. I would love to see this same rebirth become of Engine 2, Ladder 9 at Plymouth and Jersey. That former firehouse is the oldest fire house in the City of Buffalo. It was a volunteer firehouse. Which tose of you that don't know the history of our great fire department, that predates 1880. I believe the first brick was laid in 1872! Since Hogan Restoration abandoned the house a few years ago it has been vandalized by the locals. I would love to see it converted to loft apartments, but I'll never forget those days of the fire trucks running out of that house. I had pushed the city of turning it into a EMS Station for ambulances but the city didn't like that idea. So much for creative thinking and out of the box. Oh well, I can dream.