Buffalo Rising Online

Sep 18th 2006, 8:30am By STEEL

The successful renovation of 414 Delaware Avenue into a highly acclaimed boutique hotel known as The Mansion is well known in Buffalo. It has been so successful that perhaps people have forgotten the depths to which this beauty had sunken.

The house started out as the grand residence for the Charles F Sternberg family. It was built in 1869, designed by George Allison in the Second Empire style. It is the only remaining Delaware Avenue house (of several) designed by the little known Allison. It is reported that the house has as many as 200 windows, many of them filling out the 12 exuberant protruding bays which give the house its distinctive character. By the 1880's the house was sold and converted to a 100 room hotel with the addition of an annex. Rumors have it being used as a bordello in the depression years. Some legends have described a tunnel to the nearby Buffalo Club which allowed members discrete entry and exit. After WWII the building became the well known Victor Hugo Wine Cellar. This restaurant was one of Buffalo's most celebrated eateries until its closing in the 1970's.

The house was known as the Victor Hugo mansion for many years because of the restaurant. After the closing the house sat vacant and declining for about 20 years. Proposals came and passed including the ubiquitous call for "demolition of the eyesore". In 2001 a farsighted group of investors finally came forward pumping almost $3M into a renovation which resulted in the 28 room luxury hotel known as The Mansion.

I have always been interested in the forces and effects of decline. Logic would say that grand palace like houses like this should always remain grand. The care, craft and money needed to create them would seem to guaranty their value to society over time. Quite often the opposite is more common. These houses are so specialized and wrapped up with the ego and personality of the original owner that there is little market for them after the first generation occupants have left. "How could you be a respectable industrialist inhabiting a home built for someone else?" This house was barely 20 years old when it had already outlived its usefulness as a residence. Changes in land use, the economy, and fashion dictated that this house would take a slow path downward. During the 1970's, 80's and 90's it sat and rotted on Buffalo's most grand street just blocks from City Hall and in full view of its neighbor The Buffalo Club. For years the members of this powerful seat of money, prestige, and power frequented their club for business and pleasure with this derelict beauty as a backdrop out their windows. No wonder Buffalo has such a poor national reputation. Can you imagine entertaining out of town investors at your club with an abandoned building as a nearby advertisement of what they are getting into? It is as if this kind of decline had become so commonplace in Buffalo that it was not seen. It is as if it was normal that buildings like this should just rot away.

I like to think that Buffalo has turned a corner with this renovation. Since this building has been brought back to life it is hard to imagine today's generation of Buffalo business people allowing a prominent building on a prominent site like this to rot in plain sight. Certainly there are many more valuable Buffalo buildings still sinking into oblivion. It is unfortunate but understandable to have a building decline in the "out of sight out of mind" east or west sides but what of a prime site like this? Could this happen today in Buffalo? Does the renovation of this building signal a sea change in Buffalo? Are the bad old days coming to an end? Has Buffalo shaken off the fog that justifies allowing buildings to rot in plain sight?

For more on this building see the extensive collection of images (interior and exterior) at Buffalo as an Architecture Museum. Also look closely at the "Then" image included here. In the lower right corner you will see the old St. Mary's Hospital building which was also abandoned at the time of the photo. That building was successfully renovated in the 1980's and converted into Condominiums. it continues to this day to be a productive and charming part of Buffalo's urban fabric.