PRESENTED BY CRANBROOK CENTER FOR COLLECTIONS AND RESEARCH
Meet the Center in Buffalo
THREE DAYS AWAY GUIDED TOUR
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, June 26, 27, and 28, 2025
$1,675/person (includes a $500/person tax-deductible donation to the Cranbrook Center)
The registration fee includes all museum and historic home admission costs, bus transportation on Friday and Saturday, Thursday dinner, Friday lunch and dinner, and Saturday lunch and dinner. Travel to and from Buffalo, hotel accommodations, and breakfasts are not included.
Hotel accommodations are available at The Richardson Hotel—at the discounted Cranbrook rate of $279/night plus taxes (single or double occupancy)—and must be booked and paid separately by the participants. The cost of the hotel is not included in the $1,675 registration.
The tour is expected to sell out quickly. If registration has closed and you would like to be added to the Wait-list, please call or email us at 248-645-3307 or center@cranbrook.edu.
Tour Hosts
• Gregory Wittkopp, Director, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
• Amy Klein, Director of Development, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
Center Architectural Historian
• Kevin Adkisson, Curator, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
Guest Experts
• Jessie Fisher, Executive Director, The Martin House
• Ryan Gravel, Director of Operations, Graycliff
• Daniel Hart, President and Executive Director, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
• Jillian Jones, Deputy Director, Buffalo AKG Art Museum
• Alan Nowicki, Director of Programming, Roycroft Campus
• Janne Sirén, Director, Buffalo AKG Museum
Join the Center in Buffalo, New York, as we explore one of the most architecturally significant cities in the nation. The trip will include behind-the-scenes tours of Eliel and Eero Saarinen’s acoustically acclaimed Kleinhans Music Hall (where we’ll also enjoy a private recital); the two residences Frank Lloyd Wright designed for Darwin D. Martin and his family, their home in Buffalo and their summer home, Graycliff, overlooking Lake Erie; Wright’s Fontana Boathouse, which was built posthumously on the Niagara River; the late nineteenth-century Arts & Crafts Roycroft Campus in East Arora, where, just like George Booth did when he visited the campus before starting the Cranbrook Press in 1900, we’ll get some ink on our hands in the Print Shop; the architectural highlights of downtown Buffalo, including Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler’s Guaranty Building; and the buildings and artworks that comprise the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, which contains one of the most important collections of modern and contemporary art in the United States.
The home base for our exploration of Buffalo will be The Richardson Hotel, a National Historic Landmark set on more than 40 acres of historic green space and park campus designed by Fredrick Law Olmsted. Originally designed as a state hospital by Henry Hobson Richardson and completed in 1880, the enormous red sandstone and brick structure was renovated and opened as a hotel in 2017. Great care has been taken in its preservation, yet modern amenities are there to enhance our stay.
As memorable food and drink are integral to all Center experiences, it goes without saying that the trip will include three dinners in Buffalo sure to please the foodies in the group—including a private dinner on Friday night at the Roycroft Inn in the historic Hubbard Hall, where Roycroft founder Elbert Hubbard ate with his apprentices, and a closing dinner on Saturday night at the James Beard-nominated Waxlight Bar à Vin where we’ve reserved the entire restaurant just for our guests.
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
To ensure that we have behind-the-scenes access to these architectural masterworks, this guided tour is strictly limited to 37 participants. To reserve a spot on the tour, please submit the $500 deposit by April 17. There is a required minimum of 25 participants to allow for this unique experience. Once the Center determines sufficient interest, patrons on the tour list will be contacted by the Center to arrange for the final payment ($1,175) and provided the hotel registration information, including a code to receive the discounted rate. If the Center determines that there is not sufficient interest and needs to cancel the tour, the $500 deposit will be refunded. If you plan to fly to Buffalo, we suggest not making travel arrangements until April 21.
TOUR HIGHLIGHTS
Buffalo AKG Art Museum
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum is one of the oldest museums dedicated to the art of our time, and the sixth-oldest public art institution in the United States. Founded in 1862 as the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, the Buffalo AKG has been led by a series of talented and dedicated directors whose combined influence has given rise to an extraordinary collection of modern and contemporary art housed in three buildings.
The museum's Greek revival building was designed by Edward B. Green of Green & Wicks and situated next to Frederic Law Olmsted’s Delaware Park. It was intended to serve as the Fine Arts Pavilion of the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, but construction was delayed. It was dedicated in 1905 and named the Albright Art Gallery. More than a half century later, the museum was significantly enhanced through the addition of a new wing designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill of New York. This wing opened in January 1962, when the museum was renamed the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. In 2016, the museum selected the architectural firm OMA to expand and refurbish its historic campus. The renewed and revitalized Buffalo AKG Art Museum opened to the public in 2023.
Guaranty Building
The Guaranty Building, formerly called the Prudential Building, is an early skyscraper designed by Louis Sullivan (Frank Lloyd Wright’s early mentor) and Dankmar Adler. Completed in 1896, the office building is recognized as Sullivan’s most mature skyscraper. Its terra cotta facade and clean vertical lines are nothing short of breathtaking.
The building is currently owned by the law firm Hodgson Russ, LLP, which purchased it in 1998 to use as its principal Buffalo office. Our visit will include the 2017 museum-quality Guaranty Interpretative Center, which Hodgson Russ created to provide clients, guests from around the world, and architectural scholars and devotees (like all of us!) the background on the iconic structure and its place in modern architecture.
Kleinhans Music Hall
Kleinhans Music Hall is considered one of the most acoustically perfect halls in the world, and that perfection has not diminished through the years. It was designed by Eliel and Eero Saarinen, along with architects F.J. and W.A Kidd. The design of the building resembles the body of a string instrument, as does the main auditorium. Eliel’s aim was to create “an architectural atmosphere…so as to tune the performers and the public alike into a proper mood of performance and receptiveness, respectively.”
It opened on October 12, 1940, with the Buffalo Philharmonic’s first concert in the hall. In 1989, it was designated a National Historic Landmark. Kleinhans Music Hall was built thanks to the generosity and vision of Edward and Mary Seaton Kleinhans, who made their fortune from the clothing store that bore their name. When they both died in 1934, their estate and dream was stewarded by the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo. The hall was completed using funds from the Public Works Administration.
Roycroft Campus
The Roycroft Campus in East Aurora, New York, is one of the best-preserved and most complete complex of buildings remaining in the United States of the “guilds” that evolved as centers of craftsmanship and philosophy during the late nineteenth century. Founded in 1897 by Elbert Hubbard, one of the original principals of the Larkin Soap Company, Roycroft is often considered the birthplace of the American Arts & Crafts Movement. The Campus, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986, contains nine of the original fourteen structures including the Inn, the Chapel, the Print Shop, the Furniture Shop, and the Copper Shop.
During the Center’s tour, we will see it all! Our visit will even include a print workshop, during which each participant will have the opportunity to take home a handmade souvenir, and dinner in the historic Inn where Hubbard dined with his apprentices.
Martin House
Built between 1903 and 1905, the Martin House was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as the city home for Buffalo business executive Darwin D. Martin and his family. The National Historic Landmark is considered one of the great achievements of Wright’s career.
Darwin Martin, a self-made millionaire, was a top executive for the Larkin Soap Company—a soap and mail-order operation. Initially tasked with finding an architect for the firm’s new administrative headquarters in downtown Buffalo, Martin was also interested in having a new home built for his family. In the end, Martin was pivotal in engaging Wright for both projects. Although the Larkin Building was demolished in 1950, the Martin House recently completed a thorough restoration in 2019.
Described by Wright as a “domestic symphony,” the residential estate includes the main dwelling, a secondary house, a gardener’s cottage, and a series of interconnected buildings woven together within an integrated landscape. Art glass, furnishings, and other creative design elements—all conceived by Wright—give rise to a bold new vision of the home as a total work of art. During our visit to the Martin House we will tour the entire estate, including the new Visitor Center designed by Toshiko Mori Architect.
Fontana Boathouse
In 1905, Frank Lloyd Wright was asked by a University of Wisconsin oarsman and Wright-family friend, Cudworth Bye, to design a boathouse for a Yahara River site. This boathouse was to serve as an early spring rowing venue as the Yahara River did not freeze as did Lake Mendota, the regular rowing venue for the University. Wright quickly obliged with a design that he featured in his famous Wasmuth Portfolio, a catalog of the works he felt were his finest. Despite its acclaim, the boathouse was not built.
The boathouse design lay dormant and out of sight until it was rediscovered at a Wright symposium by John Courtin, then executive director of the Darwin Martin House restoration. A group was assembled to gain the rights to the boathouse design and work began in 2000 to assemble the current site on the Niagara River and complete the design and permit process. The Boathouse opened in 2007 and was dedicated as the Charlie and Marie Fontana Boathouse.
Graycliff
Perched high on a cliff overlooking Lake Erie, Graycliff was built between 1926 and 1931 for Isabelle Martin, wife of industrialist Darwin Martin, as a summer home for the family. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Graycliff’s story is about a wealthy businessman’s ambition of building a breezy summer retreat for his family, a woman’s steadfast influence in an otherwise male-dominated society, an acclaimed architect on the downward slope of his career, and a country on the brink of a financial crisis that threatened to extinguish it all. The estate, spread over 8.5 acres, includes three structures and gardens of the architect’s design.
The main residence is notable for its pavilion-like center of transparent glass, which enables one to see through the house to the lake beyond. The building’s graceful organic style also features cantilevered balconies, ribbon windows, and expansive terraces. In 1951, the property was purchased by the Piarists, a Roman Catholic teaching order from Hungary, who modified the structure to serve as a boarding school. When it was put up for sale and threatened with demolition in 1997, the local community rallied to form the Graycliff Conservancy. The residence, restored to Wright’s original design, now is a public museum.
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Travel to Buffalo, New York
4:00pm
Check-in Time at The Richardson Hotel
444 Forest Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14213
5:00 – 5:15pm
Meet in Hotel Lobby
Walk to Buffalo AKG Art Museum
5:15 – 8:00pm
Buffalo AKG Art Museum
Private Collections Tour
Welcome Dinner in the Town Square
8:00 – 8:15pm
Walk to The Richardson Hotel
Friday, June 27, 2025
8:45am
Meet in Hotel Lobby
9:00am
Bus Departs The Richardson Hotel
9:00am – 11:30pm
Downtown Buffalo Architectural Bus and Walking Tour
Visit Guaranty Building and Interpretive Center
(Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, Architects, Completed 1896)
11:30pm – 2:00pm
Kleinhans Music Hall
(Eliel and Eero Saarinen Architects, Opened 1940)
Architectural Tour
Recital in the Main Auditorium
Lunch at Marcato by Oliver’s, Kleinhans Music Hall
2:00 – 2:45pm
Buffalo Architectural Tour Continues
2:45 – 3:30pm
Travel by Bus to East Aurora
3:30 – 6:00pm
Roycroft Campus
Comprehensive Campus Tour
Print Workshop in the Historic Print Shop
6:00 – 8:00pm
Dinner at the Roycroft Inn in Hubbard Hall
8:00 – 8:30pm
Travel by Bus to The Richardson Hotel
Saturday, June 28, 2025
8:45am
Meet in Hotel Lobby
9:00am
Bus Departs The Richardson Hotel
9:00 – 10:15am
Elmwood Historic District Tour
Drive by William R. Heath House
(Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect, 1903 – 1905)
Visit Blue Sky Mausoleum, Forest Lawn Cemetery
(Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect, Commissioned 1928; Constructed 2004)
Tentative Tour of the Walter V. Davidson House
(Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect, 1908)
10:15am – 1:15pm
The Martin House Complex
(Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect, 1903 – 1905)
Comprehensive Estate Tour
Visitor Center and Interpretive Gallery
(Toshiko Mori Architect, Opened 2009)
Box Lunch at the Statler Café in the Carriage House
1:15 – 1:30pm
Travel by Bus to Fontana Boathouse
1:30 – 2:15pm
Tour Fontana Boathouse
West Side Rowing Club, Niagara River
(Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect, Designed 1905; Constructed 2007)
2:15 – 2:45pm
Travel by Bus to Derby
2:45 – 4:45pm
Graycliff on Lake Erie
(Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect, Built 1926 – 1931)
Comprehensive Tour
4:45 – 5:30pm
Travel by Bus to The Richardson Hotel
5:30 – 6:30pm
Time to Relax
6:30 – 6:45pm
Travel by Bus to Black Rock Neighborhood
6:45 – 9:15pm
Private Closing Dinner at Waxlight Bar à Vin
9:15 – 9:30pm
Travel by Bus to The Richardson Hotel
Sunday, June 29, 2025
11:00am
Check-out Time at The Richardson Hotel
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND TERMS
- The $1,675/person fee includes a required $500/person donation to Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.
- Tour reservation is guaranteed with the full $1,675 participation fee paid on time, including the $500 deposit paid by April 17 and $1,175 final payment by April 30.
- The participation fee does not include travel to and from Buffalo, accommodations at The Richardson Hotel, and breakfasts on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings.
- The tour begins with a tour and welcome dinner on Thursday and concludes with a closing dinner on Saturday evening. The tour does not include any planned activities or tours on Sunday, June 29.
- If the Center determines that there is not sufficient interest on April 21 and needs to cancel the tour, the $500 deposit will be refunded.
- After April 30, the $500 donation to the Center included in the participation fee is non-refundable (unless the tour is canceled by the Center); the remaining $1,175 tour fee is refundable only if a patron can be found to take the place of the original tour patron or if the tour is canceled by the Center.
- Attendees must reserve and pay separately for their room at The Richardson Hotel. Once the tour is confirmed by the Center, patrons will be provided with a code and instructions for booking the room.
- The hotel room is subject to The Richardson Hotel’s policies and regulations, including all applicable cancellation fees and penalties.
- The Cranbrook Center does not guarantee the availability of rooms at The Richardson Hotel at the discounted rate.
- Attendees may stay at another hotel of their choice. However, the daily tours all start and end at The Richardson Hotel.
- The Cranbrook Center will do its best to convey all dietary restrictions to the restaurants.
- The exact tour schedule, including the restaurants, is subject to change and refinement.
For additional information, please contact Amy Klein, Center Director of Development, at 248.645.3215 or AKlein@cranbrook.edu, or Greg Wittkopp, Center Director, at 248.645.3315 or GWittkopp@cranbrook.edu.
Photo Credits
Banner image: Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Photography by Jason O'Rear, Courtesy Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
Martin House Henrich Conservatory. Photography courtesy Martin House.
The Richardson Hotel, Photography Retrieved from richardsonhotel-buffalo.com.
Kleinhans Music Hall. Photography Courtesy Kleinhans Music Hall.
Ariel View of Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Photography by Jason O'Rear, Courtesy Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
Lobby of the Guaranty Building. Photography Retrieved from hellobuffalohikes.com.
View of Kleinhans Music Hall Stage. Photography Courtesy Kleinhans Music Hall.
Roycroft Copper Shop Exterior. Photography Courtesy Archives of Roycroft Campus.
Darwin D. Martin House Exterior. Photography Courtesy Martin House.
Fontana Boathouse. Photography Retrieved from buffalophotoblog.com.
Exterior and Grounds of Graycliff. Photography by Matthew Digati, Courtesy Graycliff.
Aerial View of Darwin D. Martin House. Photography Courtesy Martin House.