While we were technically staying in Warsaw, we were about a 45 minute drive to Buffalo and found some fun stuff to do there over a few days.
We also discovered that we were 15 minutes away from Attica, NY which is home to Attica Correctional Facility. We needed to run some errands on Tuesday night to pick up some things from Home Depot for a few household projects and we drove through Attica and stopped at the prison for a few photos. I know, it’s a weird tourist stop. A few years ago I read a book called “Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy” by Heather Ann Thompson and I just really enjoy visiting places that are featured in books, movies or television that I enjoyed. The riots there were famous so this was also a part of history so we had to stop by. We were really surprised how beautiful the outside of the prison was.
Somewhere in all the craziness of the week, we also managed to install an awning on the front of our house. We had debated getting some sort of canopy for a while as many of our campsites have been out in the open with absolutely no shade and it was really brutal those few days last week when it had been in the 90’s. We also have a hard time keeping the windows open when it rains because most of our windows are residential windows that open all the way (not RV windows) and it often rains in. John did a great job finding an RV awning kit and we had it delivered to our campground. He got a good bit of it assembled on his own but then needed by help getting it on the house. We tried our best but it was really a job for more than 2 people so we enlisted the help of two men from the local Sherriff’s office who happened to be camping there at the same time as us. With their assistance, the install was quickly completed and I think it looks absolutely wonderful! John will be posting a video on YouTube that goes more in-depth on the install so if you want to watch lots of footage of John climbing up and down ladders and me standing in the sun while holding a tall, heavy pole this is definitely the video for you. Be sure to check that out.
On Thursday, John took a half day and we drove into Buffalo to tour the Martin House. This house was built between 1903 and 1905 for Darwin D. Martin, a local millionaire and executive at the Larkin Company, and his family and was designed by famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. We had recently toured the Fallingwater home designed by Wright and had already visited this house back in 2013 but we were excited to take a more in-depth tour while we were in town. Thanks to the membership we purchased at Fallingwater, we were able to get a great discount on this experience.
Unlike Fallingwater, this home had been through some seriously hard times. This home was older and had made it through the Great Depression when it sat empty for 17 years because Mr. Martin passed away and Mrs. Martin was unable to afford the upkeep on her own but wasn’t able to sell it due to the economy of the time.
While the house originally included the main house with a covered walkway leading to the conservatory and carriage house. The Barton house, belonging to Mr. Martin’s sister and her family, sat to one side and a gardener’s cottage to the other on this 5 acre plot. In later years, the portions of the land with the the carriage house, conservatory and pergola would be sold and those structures demolished. The Barton House and the Gardener’s Cottage were sold. The main house fell into disrepair due to damage from the elements, neglect, and vandalism. Much of the furniture was lost, stolen or destroyed. But the greatest tragedy was the loss of the beautiful art glass windows that adorned the house.
Thankfully, when restoration began on the home, they were able to use the original plans and blueprints made by Wright and photos taken after the build was complete. The owners of the Barton House and the Gardener’s Cottage eventually sold the property back and the pergola, conservatory and carriage house were rebuilt. All of the landscaping has been redone and many of those stunning windows have been recovered or replicated. Even in the 10 years since our last visit, so much has been done in the preservation of this site.
We were not permitted to take photos inside of the houses but we did take several of the exterior. The house was designed in the Prairie style and Wright, in his signature style, did an amazing job merging the indoor and outdoor views and made such an amazing use of natural light.
John’s favorite feature of the house, however, is the way the bookcases were made. Because this house was built in the Prairie style it is long and low. With so much of the exterior walls being glass, the house was built using structural columns and steel I-Beams. The columns are arranged in a square with empty space inside. The empty centers allow room for the radiators and are the central source of heat in the home. But the outsides of the columns are covered with bookcases – one on each side standing about 4 feet tall. But the coolest part is that the front part of the bookcase swings open like a door and reveals double the space inside in a hidden bookcase compartment! I wish so badly that we were able to take photo or video of them because they were amazing.
While I also love the bookcases, I think my favorite part is the Conservatory. The building is at the other end of the long pergola, opposite the main house. As expected, the conservatory is filled with plants but it also houses the Nike of Samothrace statue. The statue currently standing in the house is a replica as the original is in The Louvre in Paris but it is still a beautiful piece, made from the same cast as the original. The way that the statue is framed by the surrounding windows and visible at the end of the walkway from the house was just incredible and another sign of Wright’s genius.
We had the good fortune to be at the house right when the peonies were at peak bloom. These are one of my favorite flowers and I could not stop walking along the rows and just breathing them in.
Darwin Martin also commissioned his summer residence called Graycliff and a building for his employer, The Larkin Company from Wright. The final work commissioned by Martin was for a mausoleum in nearby Forest Lawn Cemetery. The design was completed in 1928 but the mausoleum wasn’t constructed until 2004. We made the short drive to see the mausoleum following our zoo day on Friday. It was really beautiful, sitting on the hillside overlooking a small pond with the greenery of the hill as the backdrop- all things that Wright had included in the original design.
After leaving the Martin House, we grabbed lunch/dinner at Dinosaur BBQ on the recommendation of a friend of John’s. I am so glad that he mentioned it! We really wanted to try everything so we got two of the sampler platters which let us try the pulled pork, brisket, smoked chicken, chicken wings, sausage link, and ribs. For the four included sides, we got the Harlem potato salad, coleslaw, BBQ fried rice, and Cajun corn. We wanted ALL of the appetizers but limited ourselves to the Fried Green Tomatoes. Every single thing was delicious and it’s good that it turned out that way because we had ordered so much we had enough to eat for lunch another day, too!
Our final bucket list item for this trip was the Buffalo Zoo. John took the entire day off on Friday to finish up a few things and take me to the zoo. Thanks to our Nashville Zoo membership, we got 50% off our admission (seriously, zoo memberships are awesome!). The zoo was very small compared to others that we have visited but the seemed to have a good variety of animals. Some of the buildings looked a little older and worn out but many of the exhibits were well set up – we especially loved the reptile/amphibian area and the Polar bear exhibit. They had really nice spaces for their sea lions and otters as well. If you go, however, we highly recommend eating before or after. Prices for food inside the zoo were OUTRAGOUS! And again, we visit zoos all of the time so we are used to the inflated prices that places like this charge. I worked at a zoo for many years before we started travelling and still these food prices shocked me. Otherwise, it was a nice way to end our crazy week!
Next stop, Cold Brook in Eastern NY.
