The story of the Health House
encapsulates many of the trends and influences common in the Elmwood
Historic District (East) during the turn of the twentieth-century. The
house is reflective of the common type of middle to upper-middle class
business owner or manager who became wealthy enough to hire an
architect to design a private residence in what was rapidly becoming
Buffalo’s most prominent neighborhood.
In 1903,
William R. Heath commissioned the celebrated architect
Frank Lloyd Wright
to build his own residence at 76 Soldier’s Place (1904-1905,
contributing), located in the northern portion of the Elmwood Historic
District (East). The two-story brick residence features several
architectural elements characteristic of Wright’s signature
Prairie style design, including art glass windows,
cantilevered hipped roofs
and an emphasis on horizontality. Situated at a unique juncture of
several of Olmsted’s parkways, the William R. Heath house represents a
stunning example of Wright’s work and provides an exceptional
contribution to the Elmwood Historic District (East).
The mere presence of a Wright-designed house in the district attests to
the sheer wealth and prestige of some of its residents at the turn of
the twentieth century.
William Heath was one such wealthy resident, who had made his fortune as Office Manager, and eventually the Vice President, of the
Larkin Company
located downtown in Buffalo’s Hydraulics neighborhood. Several other
residents in this portion of the district had connections to the Larkin
Company, as the company’s president and founder John D. Larkin built
his large
‘Larkland’ estate just down the street on Lincoln Parkway.202
Elbert Hubbard, who worked in sales and marketing at the Larkin Company before he left to establish the
Roycroft
community in 1895. Effectively brother-in-law to one another, Heath
lived within visible sightline of what would become his employer’s
estate just a few years later in 1910. The conglomeration of wealth and
power in this portion of the district was evident in the high quality
of architecture and design that appeared along these streets in the
early twentieth century.
The property’s location in the Elmwood Historic District (East) played
a substantial role in Wright’s innovative design. Set upon a deep and
narrow strip of land that faced a traffic circle [
Soldier's Circle]
and multiple street intersections, the physical position of the house
on the lot became one of the primary determinants in Wright’s vision
for the residence. The lot on which Heath had commissioned Wright to
build his residence was, in short, completely atypical of Wright’s
previous designs up this point. The horizontality, open plan,
contiguous spaces and broad, sweeping views that were characteristic of
many of his early Prairie style designs were seemingly at odds with
this lot, which was narrow, angular, and very publicly oriented for a
private residence.
Particularly in the context of the other residential commission that Wright was working on in Buffalo at the time, the
Darwin D. Martin House and Complex,
this lot required some innovative design solutions in order to work
with this site. The Martin house was similarly situated within the
context of one of Olmsted’s plans, in Buffalo’s
Parkside district
(NR ref. numbers 86002817 and 07000492) located just north of the Park.
There, Wright reconciled the strong contrast between his characteristic
rectilinear style and Olmsted’s curvilinear roads by placing the
complex at a deep setback from the street. In the Elmwood Historic
District (East) he was presented with a similar relationship to the
Olmstedian character of the curving traffic circle and radiating
parkways, yet faced the additional challenge of building on a corner
lot that was much closer, and more visible, to neighboring properties
on several adjacent, intersecting streets.
For Wright, this unique plot of land provided stylistic inspiration
rather than obstacles. Facing this challenge head on, the Heath
commission became an opportunity for Wright to develop an innovative
design approach that would work with this kind of
narrow, somewhat urban site.
Privacy was a central issue in siting the residence on this land. The
corner lot was subject to more street exposure than usual because it
was situated at the junction of not one, but four streets, including
Lincoln Parkway, Chapin Parkway, Bidwell Parkway and Bird Avenue.
Wright’s solution was to set the house back from the circle, orienting
the house along Bird Avenue instead. Although the official address is
on Soldier’s Place, the interior plan of the house is arranged in
relation to Bird Avenue. Boldly pushing the exterior walls of the house
virtually up to the sidewalk on Bird Avenue, Wright provided additional
privacy by raising the house’s main interior spaces above the
pedestrian sightline, thereby greatly limiting what passersby could see
from the sidewalks. Rather than place a grand entrance at the front of
the lot, Wright provided a small, modest entrance on the Bird Avenue
side of the house. The small entrance, along with a wide chimney, and
multiple casement windows designed with art glass, served as further
screening devices that prevented onlooker curiosity despite the house’s
close proximity to the road. This orientation scheme had the effect of
essentially hiding the residents in plain sight, enabling the house to
command the prominent architectural presence befitting of Heath’s
commission, but also provided privacy for his family within.
Wright balanced this internal privacy with external prestige,
seamlessly integrating the house into the surrounding landscape of the
Elmwood Historic District (East). Unlike the sprawling lawn he was able
to provide at the Darwin R. Martin house, the William Heath house was
situated in much closer proximity to neighboring residents in the
district. Because the property culminated in a public space, Wright
could assume that the Heath residence would not be comprised by new
buildings arising on the edge of the property line.
In order to create a landscape befitting a residence of this stature,
Wright set the house at the back of the lot, leaving substantial open
space along the property where it faced Soldier’s Place. This placement
effectively doubled the ‘front yard’ of the Heath house, creating a
contiguous green zone that joins the residence’s lawn to the greenery
of Olmsted’s designs just beyond the property lines, in the adjacent
circle and parkways.203 In this way, Wright thoroughly integrated the
Heath residence into the preexisting Olmsted landscape design that
shapes the district. While the property lines clearly did not include
the public spaces of the circle and parkways, Wright’s orientation and
placement of the house turned the surrounding Elmwood district into a
virtual extension of the front yard. In this sense, the Heath residence
directly participates with the surrounding community and landscape of
the Elmwood Historic District (East).
Several architectural elements reinforce Wright’s innovative approach
to this lot and its relationship to the surrounding district. A
substantial porch faces the front lawn, covered by a cantilevered roof
with square pillar supports. The horizontal elements of the porch
extend outward towards Soldier’s Place, emphasizing the connectivity
between Heath’s property and the district beyond. Accessed only from
within the house, the porch also provides a visible display of the
house’s residents, taking advantage of their prestigious location in a
manner that is simultaneously private and public.
Inside, the ground floor of the Heath residence features an open,
contiguous plan, characteristic of many of Wright’s designs. The living
room, dining room and porch flow into one another, creating a space
that connects the deep interior of the house to the district’s green
spaces beyond the property line.204
Upstairs, the master bedroom is located above the porch, with windows
on three sides in order to provide plenty of light and an elevated view
of the Olmsted’s naturalistic landscape outside.205
Art glass adorns many of the windows in the seven bedroom house, providing a level of detail that is not only
characteristic of Wright’s style, but also attests to the opulence of the commission.
Heath’s wealth is further evident in the back of the house, where
Wright also included a single story stable for the family’s horse and
carriage. The ability to commute to work by private carriage was a
privilege reserved for the wealthy at this time, and thus the presence
of a stable further confirms the affluence of this family. Reflecting
an early stage of the Elmwood district’s transition into the automobile
age, the stable was replaced by a two-story garage just a few years
later in 1911.206
Automobiles were still very expensive at this point, and thus were
owned almost solely by the upper class. The early presence of a garage
on this property confirms the elite status of the Heath family, and, by
extension, the prestige of the Elmwood Historic District (East), where
they chose to build their residence.
The William R. Heath house remains one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most
influential contributions to global modernism that still exists in
Buffalo today. Constructed five years before the Robie house (1910),
the Heath house is considered to be an important precedent to his later
work in Chicago.207 Wright’s solution to the unique size, shape and
orientation of the lot in relation to the surrounding Elmwood district
proved useful to his commission at the
Robie house,
which was similarly situated on a corner lot amidst the surrounding
Hyde Park neighborhood and University of Chicago campus. His approach
to providing privacy for the residents, as well as demonstrating public
prestige in the context of the surrounding community, directly echoed
his earlier work at the Heath house in Buffalo.
Wasmuth portfolio
The Heath house proved to be nationally influential not only through
Wright’s work in Chicago, but also internationally influential through
its
inclusion in the renowned Wasmuth portfolio.
Published in 1910-11 by the Berlin publisher Ernest Wasmuth, the
portfolio compiled 100 lithographs of Wright’s works in America,
accompanied by a monograph written by Wright.
The Wasmuth portfolio was the first publication of Wright’s work to
appear anywhere in the world, predating his own publications by several
years. The publication was extremely important for Wright’s career, and
directly influenced many important architects across the Atlantic. Le
Corbusier was known to have owned a copy of the portfolio, and it
indelibly influenced his future designs.208 Le Corbusier, Mies van der
Rohe and Walter Gropius were all working for Peter Behrens at the time,
and it is reported that “work stopped when the portfolio first arrived
at the studio.”209 These architects, who would later be considered the
‘fathers’ of European modernism, were all deeply influenced by the
images of Wright’s work presented in the Wasmuth portfolio.210 and the
portfolio contained exterior images of its Bird Avenue facade as well
as the house’s plan and a few interior views of the first floor.
The inclusion of the Heath house in the internationally-recognized
Wasmuth portfolio testifies to its pivotal importance in the history of
architecture, of Wright’s career, and the Elmwood Historic District
(East). The distribution of the portfolio, and images of the Heath
house within it, to this powerful group of European architects
demonstrates the cultural distinction, social prestige and economic
wealth present in the Elmwood Historic District (East) during the first
decade of the twentieth century. The portfolio focused on twelve major
works by Wright, three of which were located in Buffalo- the Darwin R.
Martin house, the Larkin Administration Building, and the Heath
house.211 Of those twelve works, two have been demolished and nine have
been listed on the National Register as Historic Landmarks.212213
The William R. Heath house is the only building of those initial twelve featured in the Wasmuth portfolio that have
not been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Heath house represents a profoundly important and influential
contribution to both the local and global history of architecture and
development of modernism. Many of its innovative attributes are rooted
in Wright’s architectural response to the preexisting landscape and
character of the Elmwood Historic District (East). In this sense,
Wright’s design for the Heath house reflects the substantial prestige
of the Elmwood district at the turn of the century, identifying this
portion of the district as a seat of cultural power and wealth in the
early twentieth century.