Peggi has been quietly building DonHershey.com, a website devoted to the famed Rochester architect. Hershey was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright and they both had a profound reverence for nature. Hershey, we’re told would pull up to an empty lot, survey the lie of the land and start sketching the footprint of the house, determining which way to orient the rooms, the windows, the entrance in order to have the house be in close harmony with the land.
The Frank Lloyd Wright house in Rochester is occasionally open to the public but Buffalo’s Martin House is always ready for non-for-profit business so we booked an 11 AM tour on Saturday. In some cities your commute could be an hour, in Rochester you can be in another city in an hour. This place is much more than a house, it is an entire complex. There is a pavilion on site with a mini museum inside, and there is a beautiful gardener’s house on the property. Wright designed and built a stable and garage, a conservatory with an underground and above ground passageway to it. And there is an additional house on the property for the in-laws. It is undergoing renovation but all work is being done to spec and that’s what makes this tour so interesting. You really get a sense of the effort involved in creating this treasure.
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