The missing leg to a cypress library table provided the missing link in the table&#8217s

return to the Graycliff Estate.

The 12-legged table, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and first used by Isabelle and Darwin

Martin at Graycliff, is back in the Derby home designed by Wright and built in the late 1920s.

How it found its way back home was part detective work and part luck.

The solid table remained when the property was bought by the Piarist Fathers around 1950.

&#8220When I first came in the house in 1979, this table was sitting in the bingo room, in

the middle of the living room, where they were using it for bingo,&#8221 said Patrick J.

Mahoney, president of the Graycliff Conservancy. &#8220It was missing one of its legs.&#8221

Mahoney was a teenager then and had persuaded the priests to allow him to photograph all

the Wright-designed furniture in the house.

Years later, in 1997, the conservancy acquired the property from the Piarist Fathers, but

the table had been sold two years earlier. When Mahoney was helping to clean out the house, he

was crawling under the front stairs and discovered the leg.

&#8220As soon as I saw the leg, I knew exactly what it was, because it occurred to me: The

priests never throw anything away,&#8221 he said.

The conservancy had tried contacting the Colorado collector who bought the table and other

furniture, but he never returned telephone calls, and members of the group had no idea if they

had contacted the right person.

Then, last year, the owner contacted the conservancy when he wanted to sell everything but

the 12-legged table, which is 33 by 54 inches.

&#8220A table this size doesn&#8217t need 12 legs, but four of them don&#8217t touch the

ground; they just connect the bottom shelf to the top,&#8221 Mahoney said. &#8220The other

eight go all the way down and have flairs that make the table light and airy, like a summer

house should feel. So even though it&#8217s a heavy table, he wants it to feel like a light

table.&#8221

By this time, the conservancy had acquired several pieces to match the other furniture and

was not interested in buying anything but the table.

About nine months later, they heard from the man again, and this time, he agreed to sell

the table for $5,400.

It would have fetched far more, but the original sketch of the table, drawn by Wright on a

roof shingle from the house, was destroyed in the 1960s, so there was no documentation that

the table was original.

Some of the proof of its authenticity can be found on the table. A note, &#8220To D.

Martin,&#8221 apparently from the millwork company Montgomery Brothers in Buffalo, is written

on its underside.

But Mahoney had the missing leg, which was all the documentation that the Graycliff

Conservancy needed.

Still, the group needed funds to purchase the table. That&#8217s where W. Stanley Hooper

and the Hooper Family Foundation came in. The foundation is &#8220adopting&#8221 the family

sun porch, where the table was located, and is underwriting the cost of restoring that room.

Funds for the table were the first installment.

&#8220It&#8217s culture, and it&#8217s quality, and it&#8217s history,&#8221 said Hooper,

83. &#8220It&#8217s worth preserving.&#8221

Mahoney drove to Colorado to pick up the table to make sure that one of the legs was

missing. They had had the leg replaced by an expert, and Mahoney said he&#8217s not sure

whether the original leg would be reattached.

&#8220The table,&#8221 he said, &#8220is in better shape than the leg.&#8221