From the Winter 2001 issue of EVE Magazine, the premier women's magazine of Western New York, reprinted with kind permission of Susan Fenster, editor and publisher. [Note: photos are not original to the article.]
Doing The "Wright" Thing
by Christina Abt
In January of 1997, Bruce Bronnenkant set up a blind date for his wife, Carol. His reasoning was simple: "It seemed like it needed to be done," he said.
While this situation may sound unusual to most, Bruce's matchmaking turned out to be an enriching experience not only for his wife, but also for the entire Western New York community. For Carol Bronnenkant's "blind date" ultimately turned into a rendezvous with destiny - destiny with a house known as Isabel Martin's Graycliff.
Bronnenkant, president of the Graycliff Conservancy, Inc., is clear in assessing her restoration involvement with the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed estate: "I am an unlikely candidate to do what I'm doing. No one would pick me out and say, `You're the person to save Graycliff,"' Bronnenkant said. "But I think people have a destiny and they can choose it, or walk away. I believe I was meant to do this."
Bronnenkant's destiny also involves meeting with others in the community who share her interest in preserving architectural history. "While I was the one who stepped forward and started this, I was just a wife and a mother," she said. "As a quiet, private person, it was a big stretch for me to do this and it would have been a very short run without other people stepping forward."
Long before anyone was willing to take that initial step, Graycliff sat on the Derby bluffs of Lake Erie, tattered, torn and in desperate need of salvation. Bronnenkant recalls the sequence of events that led her to the southtown estate. "It was December of 1996 and I was working as a volunteer docent at the Darwin Martin House (another Western New York, Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house, built by Darwin Martin and wife, Isabel)," she said.
One morning as a group of docents were waiting to begin their tours, conversation turned to the sale of Graycliff and everyone's assumption that it was going to be sold for lakeside development. As a way of seeing the inside of the property before it was sold, someone suggested to Bronnenkant that she contact a realtor and pretend to be interested in purchasing the property.
"I couldn't imagine having the nerve to call a realtor and pretend to be a buyer," she said. Enter Bronnenkant's husband, someone she calls "Bruce the Brave."
"When Carol came home that day and told me about Graycliff, I thought it sounded like an opportunity you wouldn't want to let slip by," Bruce explained. "I figured, why not at least check it out?" Bruce made the call and set up an appointment.
On
a bitterly cold Sunday in January, the entire Bronnenkant clan, including daughter
Sara and son Alex, accompanied Carol on her fateful foray to Graycliff. One
wonders if either Carol or Bruce ever actually entertained the idea of purchasing
the Wright-designed domain at that juncture? Surprisingly, it is Bruce who sheepishly
admits to momentary delusions. "I thought we at least ought to look at it to
see if Graycliff was something worth saving," he said. "If it was, I had a fleeting
thought that maybe we could scrape something together."
Once seen, however, the delusion died a quick death. "We toured the place from top to bottom, every nook and cranny," Carol said. "With every room, the amount of work that needed doing seemed more overwhelming."
While conventional wisdom would have the Bronnenkant's turning tail and running, reason and logic went out the window since Carol had fallen in love with the estate at first sight.
"Seeing Graycliff was a very physical experience to me," she said. "The whole time we were there the realtor kept talking about developing the property. Thinking about that prospect, made my stomach hurt. I kept thinking that Buffalo was going to lose another treasure."
Not wanting Graycliff to disappear from the Western New York architectural horizon, Bronnenkant did what any love struck woman would do - she made up her mind to save it.
"I went home and called Jack Quinan, the curator of the Darwin Martin House. I asked him if he would help me try and save Graycliff."
The combined demands of his responsibilities at the Darwin Martin House, along with his own career workload, confined Quinan's support to a bare minimum. "I told Carol that I could only agree to help on a short-term basis as I was really tied up with my own commitments," Quinan said.
Bronnenkant also thought that her leadership role at Graycliff would be short-term. "I had no background in any kind of project like this," she said. "Part of me just felt that if I got the ball rolling someone would step forward and spearhead the project."
With those plans set firmly in her mind, Bronnenkant began organizing workers into a structured committee. "We set up a call-to-action meeting at the Buffalo Historical Society on March 18, 1997. Surprisingly, more than 120 people showed up," she said. Bronnenkant said the participants were a widely diverse group, "young and old alike." During that meeting, a core of 30 signed on and formed the nucleus of what would ultimately become The Graycliff Conservancy, Inc.
Step
two in Graycliff's road to restoration involved raising money, and lots of it.
Fundraising plans were formed and reformed. Ultimately, it was decided that
government funds and foundation grants were crucial to the project's success.
Following the incorporation of the Graycliff Conservancy, Bronnenkant started lobbying potential saviors such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation; The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation; The Trust for Public Land; The Historic Preservation Section of the Clean Water, Clean Air Act; The Baird Foundation; and The Preservation League of New York State.
Despite the fundraising plans, ownership of the property was still an issue. At the time, Graycliff was owned by a group of Piarist Fathers who were trying to sell the property for $400,000, and the Conservancy actually found itself in the precarious position of trying to raise money for a building they didn't own, in order to obtain funds to try and save it.
"When I look at the scenario objectively now," Bronnenkant said, "I realize that it was just so outlandish."
Outlandish or not, Bronnenkant and her merry band of rescuers continued to forge ahead. Slide presentations brought the preservationist's plans to the Western New York forefront and funds began to trickle in. Meanwhile, Bronnenkant continued to agonize over the ownership situation.
"Lots of people were coming through the house looking to buy it," she said. "We also heard rumors about an out-of-town interest. And at that point, we really didn't have any money to speak of. We had nothing but passion, really. It was very frightening."
Bronnenkant pinpoints one particular fundraiser as a turning point in their restoration quest. "The Rev. Margaret R. Foster, the granddaughter of Isabel and Darwin, agreed to speak at one of our fundraisers," she said. "It was a big step for her to speak publicly about her family and their life at Graycliff. It was also important to us, as the event sold out."
Further benefit lectures and a black tie gala continued to swell the preservationist's coffers. By the end of 1997, the Conservancy's bankbook was healthy enough to produce a $20,000 check for a non-refundable down payment for the purchase of Graycliff. The balance of the $400,000 purchase price was due in six months. Fortunately, the determined preservationists had the foresight to also negotiate a six-month extension in the sales contract. When all was said and done, raising the remaining funds to purchase the property took all of the extension time, plus an additional six months.
Rather than cracking under the financial pressure, Bronnenkant
adopted a philosophical attitude. "At that point, whatever method people suggested
to raise funds, I would try," she said. "I had absolutely no prejudices."
Bronnenkant also decided to let go of
worrying about failure and "just throw myself into doing it:" Bronnenkant's
free thinking encouraged Conservancy brainstorming sessions. It was during
these gatherings that the Graycliff group came to the realization that
they would not be able to rely solely on grants and federal money to amass
their purchasing power. Rather, funding was also going to have to come,
dollar by dollar, from the deepest recesses of John Q. Public's pockets.
The question then became how to loosen people's purse strings. The conservancy's
answer: offering Graycliff memberships and tours.
Bronnenkant laughs today at the memory of the first Graycliff tour. "The priests were living in the house at the time, but they graciously agreed to allow us to run the tours," she said. The Conservancy decided to schedule them only on weekends, and during the premiere tour on an early April weekend Buffalo was hit with a major snowstorm. "But my mother always taught me to go with my original plan, so I drove from Williamsville in a blinding storm and ended up giving a tour to one person," she explained.
Fortunately, as word spread about the Graycliff tours, business improved. Bronnenkant beams as she recounts the tally. "By May we were booked solid on every tour - 25 people every hour." Based on the statistics, the group decided to extend the program through the summer and eventually into the fall. That first season, more than 4,000 people went through the house, many of whom signed on as dues-paying members of the Conservancy.
During this intense fund raising period, a $200,000 cash grant with a guaranteed bank mortgage was awarded to the Conservancy through the efforts of the Baird Foundation. With that funding in place, the deal for Graycliff could at last be completed. In April of 1999, ownership transferred from the priests into the hands of the Conservancy. The lakeside estate was officially safe from demolition or development. At the time, it was considered a major accomplishment. In reality, it was only the first of many hurdles that had to be jumped.
In
the intervening months since the sale, the Graycliff Conservancy has experienced
the ebb and flow of the tide that washes over a restoration project of this
magnitude. With the money obtained from the Baird Foundation, a study was commissioned
to assess the actual costs of restoring the Martin family's summer home. The
figures returned in the range of $2 to $3 million dollars. Bronnenkant, while
aware of the magnitude of those numbers, appreciates their precision. "When
the numbers first came in, we didn't know quite what to think. But the first
phase of the restoration has borne out the estimate. So we now know that the
costs are pretty accurate, which allows us to formulate budgets and plans."
The first restorative phase involved the rebuilding of the estate's garden wall and heat hut, both a priority because they were in danger of collapsing. She notes that the first project has also served as a prototype for the future. "The heat but was a great place to start because it has all the elements of the main house. The stucco, the stone walls, the shingles. We've been able to use it as a proving ground to perfect the formulas for the restoration of the main house."
Graycliff's next corrective surgery involves the complete restoration of the garage, the servant apartment, and the re-roofing of the main house with red shingles, all in accordance with Wright's original design. The partial funding for this second phase was raised from the combined resources of a $145,000 grant from the Clean Water, Clean Air Bond Act and a $500,000 check from the New York State Strategic Investment Fund. Beyond that, Bronnenkant professes to more than a general timetable than a definitive plan. "We are really only scratching the surface. We have come a long way, but we have a long way to go."
While there is no denying the need for the large amounts of grant and government money the Conservancy has received, Bronnenkant believes that the restoration of the Martin/Wright home is firmly tied into the effort of individuals. "The people involved in Graycliff are very passionate and that's what drives this project," she said. " Because we have no money, people realize that they can make a difference here. There is a real sense of pride in the people who are committed to this."
Despite the enormous scope of the project, Bronnenkant firmly expects that Graycliff will one day be restored to its original architectural integrity. "I am very committed to this project and I want it to happen. But I don't want to nurse this thing along as a life project either." To that end, Bronnenkant sees her time in the forefront as limited. "I see myself as a facilitator here. While this is not the time to step away, within five year's time the conservancy will be an established organization and I see myself then taking a lesser role."
Given membership numbers at more than 300 and growing, and grant money steadily streaming into Graycliff's bank account, Bronnenkant's retreating timetable of five years seems quite plausible. But as this self-described "stay-at-home mom" strolls through the grounds of the property she has helped to preserve, her definitive tone softens. "There is a comfort level here; something about the design and setting. I think you could live happily ever after in this house."