Graycliff was built as a summer residence for Isabelle Martin and her husband Darwin, retired secretary of the Larkin Company, a soap manufacturing company in Buffalo, New York. Frank Lloyd Wright, a close friend of the Martins, designed Graycliff as an expression of his ability to integrate building and site by breaking down the barriers between building walls and outside spaces. Glass walls make the upper story float and the lower story transparent, terraces mimic the cliff brink and make the sky part of the house, and stone extends through the house and along a stone-sided esplanade connecting the house to the cliff above a sixty-five-foot drop to Lake Erie. The natural cantilever of Tichnor Limestone, the material used for the structure, and the gray band of dense rock gave Graycliff its name. Overhangs, cantilevered balconies, low walls, low shrubs, and long horizontal lines emphasize the house’s continuity with the cliff strata, lake horizon, and surrounding landscape, while glass walls allow views through the house to the lake and sky beyond. Wright conceived the main house as two buildings connected by a second-story bridge, with the glass-enclosed space under the bridge focusing attention on the lake view beyond; sunken gardens, a projecting porte cochere, a sunken pool, and the axis of the entry drive reinforced by white pines link outdoor and indoor spaces and draw the eye toward the lake and setting sun. The Foster House, originally conceived as servants’ quarters but later occupied by Isabelle’s daughter Dorothy Martin Foster, is a more traditional Wright design with extensive eaves and cantilevers. The American lakeshore west of Buffalo became a popular location for large summer homes after World War Two.