Luckily for the Martin House Complex restoration, the 121-year-old Belden Brick Co. of Canton, Ohio, still uses the outdated labor- and energy-intensive process. Proponents insist that the blends and colors cannot be replicated in the modern tunnel kilns of today.

The family-owned brick company was selected to closely match the original golden color and slender size of the bricks for the complex's reconstructed carriage house, pergola and conservatory, but only after an eight-year search that included approaching manufacturers across the Atlantic. The beehive process was used when the original bricks were made by the long-defunct Fallston Fire Clay Co. in Fallston, Pa. Belden Brick Co. is one of only three companies in the United States that still use that style of kiln.

"We feel like we've had a lot to do with making the Darwin Martin House a beautiful lady once again. She's pretty much ready to go to the dance, and we're very proud," said Mark Britko, Belden's general sales manager.

Britko was first contacted in 1996 by restoration architect Ted Lownie of Hamilton Houston Lownie Architects. The company produced sample fire clay and shale bricks that Lownie said were close in color. But leaving no brick unturned, Martin House Restoration Corp. continued its search elsewhere.

Manufacturers were approached without success in the Northwest and the Southwest, western Canada, and as far away as Britain, Spain and Belgium, Lownie said.

Eventually, Belden was invited to try again. This time, with a new plant able to boost its production capabilities and reduce back orders, the timing proved right.

"They produced a brick that everyone agreed was going to be satisfactory both in terms of size and color. I think the result is wonderful," Lownie said.

The brick selection for the National Historic Landmark had to satisfy the rigorous standards of the U.S. Department of the Interior and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

The reconstructed buildings will have 90,000 Roman bricks from Belden Brick when finished, along with about 100,000 common red bricks obtained elsewhere for masonry purposes, according to Larry Izydorczak, president of John H. Black Co. in Clarence, which hand-cut them.

Exact replicas were intentionally not sought, Lownie said, so the public would know decades from now that the reconstructed buildings were not originals.

The project's attention to detail included replicating the two types of mortar that architect Frank Lloyd Wright used to emphasize the brick's recessed horizontal joints and appearance of a straight line.

e-mail: msommer@buffnews.com