Feb. 1, 1980 Gusto cover story sidebar: The Metcalfe House

The box on Page 10.

Feb. 1, 1980

Metcalfe Agonistes

         If the ecstasies of the preservation movement derive from saving something like Shea’s Buffalo, then the agonies are being played out these days on a little plot of land behind the Butler Mansion at Delaware and North. There stands the Metcalfe House, a shambling, unassuming, dumbly altered former rooming house that suddenly is discovered to have a pedigree.

         It was designed in 1882 and completed in 1884 for James S. Metcalfe, son of an early Buffalo parks commissioner, and his mother. It replaced their old house, which stood where the Butler Mansion is. Young Metcalfe went on to become one of the greatest drama critics of his day, writing for Life magazine and the Wall Street Journal. Actor Nat Goodwin once sued him for libel.

         Architects were the noted firm of McKim, Mead and White, who rendered their first Buffalo house in their newly celebrated neo-colonial style, an upshot of the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. It emerged as a cozy, commodious, brick and Medina sandstone suburban bungalow – North Street being not far from the edge of town in those days.

         But it kept its greatest joys within its walls. To this day, much of its marvelous McKim, Mead and White woodwork survives. “It’s in remarkably good condition,” says Buff State’s Francis Kowski, “considering it was a boarding house. Nobody carved their initials in it. They all seemed to respect this woodwork.”

         When McKim, Mead and White came back to Buffalo in the 1890s, they were replete with the famous neo-classical flamboyance of the 1893 exposition in Chicago. They expressed it in three grandiose mansions at Delaware and North, two of which still stand.

         One of them is the Butler Mansion, recently purchased by Sportservice as a new corporate home. Once the mansion gets its much-desired rehabilitation, parking will be needed for 70 cars. Aside from the Metcalfe plot, no other parking area is available. The owner of a vacant lot a dozen yards away is intractable. He wants to put a condominium there, not cars. Furthermore, rehabbing the Metcalfe House would cost a cool half a million dollars, plus parking.

         The Buffalo Landmark and Preservation Board, after much soul searching, came to a King Solomon decision. Yes, Sportservice could remove the Metcalfe House. And yes, if Sportservice does remove the Metcalfe House, the interior must be dismantled and preserved. As of today, the company may proceed as it deems fit.

         Few Buffalonians ever got a chance to witness its wonderful interior, but in demolition the spirit of the Metcalfe House may wind up delighting millions. A museum curator, proclaiming it the vest Victoriana he’s ever seen, has inquired about buying it. He wants to reconstruct it and put it on display for all to see.

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IN THE PHOTOS: What the Metcalfe House looked like in its better days and the fabled stairhall, now preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

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FOOTNOTE: Researcher and writer Susan J. Eck has published an account of what happened to the Metcalfe House on her Western New York History website. She notes:

“It took two weeks to dismantle the interior. Parts were sent to the Metropolitan; it would be eleven years before the entry and stairhall went on exhibit in the American Wing in 1991. The next year, Peter M. Kenny came to Buffalo from the The Met to give a lecture and came away with two windows that had been moved from their original location in later remodeling. One had originally been saved by John Conlin and the other donated to Austin Fox for the Met by John Lenahan. They were installed in their original locations in the inglenook of the stairhall. The Met had also received the parlor in 1980 but difficulties in identifying the original design have left it in storage. Other parts were delivered to Buffalo State, which unveiled the Metcalfe rooms in Rockwell Hall with little fanfare in 1989.

“The house was demolished and the company then decided that the parking was not needed, after all. Instead, gardens were laid out on part of the site, which remain in 2013. Subsequently, Mosette Broderick, a national McKim, Mead & White expert, said emphatically that the Metcalfe House was the building to save instead of the Butler Mansion.

“But the Metcalfe House demolition had ignited a fire in some Western New Yorkers. They saw the ineffective Buffalo Landmark and Preservation Board and the mild-mannered Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier and wanted a more activist approach to historical preservation. So many buildings had already been lost that the further loss of the Metcalfe House created the desire to confront public and private interests over the future of Buffalo's architectural heritage. And so, in 1981, the Preservation Coalition of Erie County was founded by Peter Filim, Susan McCartney, Joan Bozer, Scott Field, Kitty Turgeon and Robert Rust. Over the next 27 years, the Coalition helped establish three historic districts in Buffalo, took title to the Central Terminal and spun it off to the Central Terminal Corporation, sued New York State to preserve the Canal district, sued New York State to force stabilization of the Richardson Complex, among other preservation achievements.”