List of Designated Historic Properties in Amherst, New York

Last updated May 21, 2024

The Historic Preservation Commission of the Town of Amherst, New York is a governmental organization empowered to designate historic landmarks and districts within the town's boundaries. As of August 2021, there are 32 such landmarks in the town, all of which are individual properties as opposed to districts.

Historic Preservation Commission

The Historic Preservation Commission was established in 1994 under the auspices of Amherst's Historic Preservation Law, in accordance with Section 96-a of the General Municipal Law of the State of New York concerning protection of historic places, buildings and works of art. This provision of law gives the town government the authority to "provide, by local law, regulations, special conditions and restrictions for the protection, enhancement, perpetuation and the use of places, districts, sites, buildings, structures, works of art and other objects having special character or special historical or other aesthetic interest or value".^[1]

Designation of historic properties

The Commission's power to recommend designation of historic landmarks or districts is based on a range of different criteria including importance in local history, architectural distinction, and whether, "because of a unique location or singular physical characteristic, [they represent]... established and familiar visual feature[s] of the neighborhood." The recommendation is then sent forward to the Town Board, who, after receiving feedback from various town departments and from citizens themselves at a public hearing, either reject the recommendation or adopt it into law as deemed appropriate. Upon designation as a historic property or district, the assent of the Historic Preservation Commission is required for any future "exterior alteration, restoration, reconstruction, excavation, grading, demolition, new construction [or] material change... which affect [its] appearance or cohesiveness."^[2]

Village of Williamsville

To date, the Amherst Town Board has only applied historic designation to properties within the unincorporated portion of the town. The incorporated Village of Williamsville has its own Historic Preservation Commission, an organ of the village government wholly separate from its town-based counterpart, that handles landmark designation within its boundaries.^[3]

List of Designated Historic Properties

Property name^[4]	Address or location	NRHP Status^[5]	Description
1-7 Center Street		Eligibility undetermined	Former cooperage and stave factory operated from 1852 until c. 1880 by brothers Jacob and Franklin Goetz, sons of Joseph Goetz, founder and namesake of the hamlet of Getzville.
23 Four Seasons West		Eligible	Former home of oil magnate Franklin B. Hower, once situated on a 17-acre country estate. An unusual Neoclassical design built c. 1905 by an unknown architect.
38 Richfield Road		Eligibility undetermined	Side-gabled vernacular stone residence with 1920s-era front porch in Craftsman style. Possibly one of the oldest buildings in Amherst (estimates for its date of construction extend back to the 1810s); once part of the 100-acre cattle farm of pioneer settler Peter Hershey, where it may have served as a barn.
58 Youngs Road		Not eligible	Two-and-a-half-story clapboard residence built c. 1905 for smallholder and sometime hotelier Michael Albert; a typical example of vernacular farmhouse construction of the era.
260 Campbell Boulevard		Not eligible	Two-story vernacular Italianate building erected c. 1860 by pioneer settler Charles Dean which, at varying times, has served a range of civic functions in the hamlet of Getzville: tavern, post office, court house, dance hall, and roadside inn for travelers along the Canandaigua and Niagara Falls Railroad.
4030 Rensch Road		Eligible	Built c. 1855 by German-born farmer Gottfried Kuhl; one of a very few surviving stone houses dating back to the pioneer era of the town's early history. Vernacular farmhouse design with Greek Revival pedimented portico in front.
Buffalo Academy of the Sacred Heart Main Building	3860 Main Street	Eligible	1930 Colonial Revival Roman Catholic girls' school building designed by Bley & Lyman. Sacred Heart was founded by the Sisters of St. Francis in 1877 and originally located in downtown Buffalo.
Coplon Mansion at Daemen University	4380 Main Street	Eligible	Built in 1919 from an Italian Renaissance-style design by Buffalo architect Louis Greenstein; served as the country home of furniture merchant Samuel Coplon. Purchased by Daemen University in 1956 who used it first as student housing and then for classrooms and offices.
Country Club of Buffalo Stone House	251 Youngs Road	Eligible	Built c. 1840s of locally quarried Onondaga limestone for James S. Youngs; one of a very few surviving pioneer-era stone houses in Amherst and a typical example of Greek Revival-influenced vernacular farmhouse architecture of the era. Now owned by the Country Club of Buffalo.
Entranceways at Kensington Avenue at Roycroft Boulevard		Eligibility undetermined	Decorative stone walls and lamp posts marking the entrance to an early suburban subdivision.
Entranceway at Main Street at Darwin Drive		Listed	Decorative ashlar lamp posts and wrought-iron sidewalk gates built in 1927 to mark the entrance to an early suburban subdivision.
Entranceway at Main Street at Getzville Road		Eligibility undetermined	Decorative stone walls marking the entrance to an early suburban subdivision, a portion of which was built c. 1820 and is the oldest such stone wall remaining along Main Street.
Entranceway at Main Street at High Park Boulevard		Listed	Decorative ashlar lamp posts and walls built in 1916 to mark the entrance to an early suburban subdivision.
Entranceway at Main Street at Lafayette Boulevard		Listed	Decorative stone walls, posts, and roofed arched gateways built c. 1920 to mark the entrance to an early suburban subdivision.
Entranceways at Main Street at Lamarck Drive and Smallwood Drive		Listed	Decorative stone walls, posts, and prominent Tudor Revival-style metal-roofed gatehouses built in 1926 to mark the entrance to an early suburban subdivision.
Entranceway at Main Street at LeBrun Road		Listed	Decorative ashlar lamp posts and walls built in 1916 to mark the entrance to an early suburban subdivision.
Entranceway at Main Street at Roycroft Boulevard		Listed	Decorative brick lampposts and semicircular half-height stone walls built in 1918 to mark the entrance to an early suburban subdivision.
Entranceway at Main Street at Westfield Road and Ivyhurst Road		Listed	Decorative ashlar posts and walls built in 1920 by merchant-turned-real estate developer John Sattler to mark the entrance to an early suburban subdivision.
Gethsemane Cemetery Stone Chapel	203 Reist Street	Eligibility undetermined	Gothic-style cemetery chapel built in 1902 on the former property of the Franciscan sisters' St. Mary of the Angels Motherhouse.
Goodyear Water Tower	east side of Old Tower Lane between Raine Drive and Northill Drive	Eligible	The only known octagonal water tower in Erie County, built c. 1920 to supply water to the Josephine Goodyear Convalescent Home for Children.
Haussauer House	1000 North Forest Road	Not eligible	One-and-a-half-story Craftsman bungalow built c. 1910 as home of farmer-turned-National Guardsman Henry G. Haussauer.
Hedstrom Gate House	4196 Main Street	Eligible	Unique large house on what was once the 97-acre country estate of coal merchant Arthur Hedstrom, built in 1904 as a combination of two earlier buildings dating to c. 1820 and c. 1850. Site of last operational toll gate along the Buffalo and Williamsville Macadam Road, decommissioned 1899.
Maple & North Forest Schoolhouse	1323 North Forest Road	Not eligible	The only former one-room brick schoolhouse in Amherst that remains in its original location, built c. 1860 for District #17.
Mennonite Meeting House	5178 Main Street	Listed	Vernacular Greek Revival-style building erected in 1834 of locally quarried limestone as house of worship for an Anabaptist community that included many of the town's founding families. In use as a church until 1981; now houses a branch location of Evans Bank.
Park School Stone House	4635 Harlem Road	Eligible	Oldest building in the hamlet of Snyder, built c. 1831 as home of pioneer settler John Schenck. Reputed to have been a station on the Underground Railroad under a subsequent owner. Now owned by the Park School of Buffalo.
Rosary Hall at Daemen University	4380 Main Street	Eligible	Designed in 1910 by prominent Buffalo architect George Cary; home first to insurance executive George Crouch and then to Irvin Airchute Company cofounder George Waite; now owned by Daemen University. Italian Renaissance style with prominent Mediterranean Revival influences.
St. Mary of the Angels Motherhouse	400 Mill Street	Listed	Collegiate Gothic convent designed in 1928 for the Sisters of Saint Francis by Dietel & Wade; now a senior housing facility and part of Amherst State Park.
Stimm House	895 North Forest Road	Eligible	Former home of civil engineer Henry Stimm, designed in 1942 by architect Sebastian Tauriello; International Style with heavy influence from Frank Lloyd Wright's contemporaneous work (more specifically, its design is said to be loosely based on Fallingwater).
Street sign at Main Street at Audubon Drive		Eligibility undetermined	Decorative wrought iron street sign built c. 1920s to mark the entrance to an early suburban subdivision.
Street sign at Main Street at Burbank Drive		Eligibility undetermined	Decorative wrought iron street sign built c. 1920s to mark the entrance to an early suburban subdivision.
Street sign at Main Street at Burroughs Drive and Darwin Drive		Eligibility undetermined	Decorative wrought iron street sign built c. 1920s to mark the entrance to an early suburban subdivision.
Williamsville South High School	5950 Main Street	Listed	1950 Colonial Revival public high school building designed by Duane Lyman.

External links

Town of Amherst Historic Preservation Commission

Related Research Articles

The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic value". A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred in preserving the property.

Amherst is a town in Erie County, New York, United States. It is a suburb of Buffalo. As of 2020, the town had a total population of 129,595. This represents an increase from 122,366 as reported in the 2010 census. It is the 14th most populated City/Town in New York.

Williamsville is a village in Erie County, New York, United States. The population was 5,423 at the 2020 census. The village is named after Jonas Williams, an early settler. It is part of the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area.

The administrative divisions of New York are the various units of government that provide local services in the American state of New York. The state is divided into boroughs, counties, cities, towns, and villages. They are municipal corporations, chartered (created) by the New York State Legislature, as under the New York State Constitution the only body that can create governmental units is the state. All of them have their own governments, sometimes with no paid employees, that provide local services. Centers of population that are not incorporated and have no government or local services are designated hamlets. Whether a municipality is defined as a borough, city, town, or village is determined not by population or land area, but rather on the form of government selected by the residents and approved by the New York State Legislature. Each type of local government is granted specific home rule powers by the New York State Constitution. There are still occasional changes as a village becomes a city, or a village dissolves, each of which requires legislative action. New York also has various corporate entities that provide local services and have their own administrative structures (governments), such as school and fire districts. These are not found in all counties.

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and culturally significant buildings and sites by granting them landmark or historic district status, and regulating them after designation. It is the largest municipal preservation agency in the nation. As of July 1, 2020, the LPC has designated more than 37,800 landmark properties in all five boroughs. Most of these are concentrated in historic districts, although there are over a thousand individual landmarks, as well as numerous interior and scenic landmarks.

Historic preservation (US), built heritage preservation or built heritage conservation (UK) is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance. It is a philosophical concept that became popular in the twentieth century, which maintains that cities as products of centuries' development should be obligated to protect their patrimonial legacy. The term refers specifically to the preservation of the built environment, and not to preservation of, for example, primeval forests or wilderness.

Amherst State Park is an 80-acre (0.32 km²) park in Erie County, New York, United States. The park is located northeast of Buffalo, partially in the Village of Williamsville with the balance located in the Town of Amherst. The park is managed by the Town of Amherst under an agreement with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

Historic districts in the United States are designated historic districts recognizing a group of buildings, archaeological resources, or other properties as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects, and sites within a historic district are normally divided into two categories, contributing and non-contributing. Districts vary greatly in size and composition: a historic district could comprise an entire neighborhood with hundreds of buildings, or a smaller area with just one or a few resources.

In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district significant. Government agencies, at the state, national, and local level in the United States, have differing definitions of what constitutes a contributing property but there are common characteristics. Local laws often regulate the changes that can be made to contributing structures within designated historic districts. The first local ordinances dealing with the alteration of buildings within historic districts was enacted in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931.

The Central Park West Historic District is located along Central Park West, between 61st and 97th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 9, 1982. The district encompasses a portion of the Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District as designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and contains a number of prominent New York City designated landmarks, including the Dakota, a National Historic Landmark. The buildings date from the late 19th century to the early 1940s and exhibit a variety of architectural styles. The majority of the district's buildings are of neo-Italian Renaissance style, but Art Deco is a popular theme as well.

The Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) provides financial support for historic preservation projects throughout the United States. The fund is administered by the National Park Service (NPS), pursuant to the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA). The fund provides state historic preservation agencies with matching funds to implement the act.

The South Village is a largely residential area that is part of the larger Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan, New York City, directly below Washington Square Park. Known for its immigrant heritage and bohemian history, the architecture of the South Village is primarily tenement-style apartment buildings, indicative of the area's history as an enclave for Italian-American immigrants and working-class residents of New York.

The North Main–Bank Streets Historic District is located along those streets in Albion, New York, United States. It is one of two historic districts in the village, comprising the commercial core of the village, developed during its years as a major stop on the Erie Canal. A portion of the canal, now the New York State Barge Canal, and two of its bridges are within the district.

The Historic Districts Council (HDC) is a New York City-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that serves as the advocate for New York City's historic buildings, neighborhoods, and public spaces. HDC's YouTube channel provides a large catalog of free walking tour videos, Preservation School classes, conference panels, and other educational programming.

References

↑ Historic Preservation Law of the Town of Amherst (Section 2, Chapter 121). Town Board of the Town of Amherst, New York. October 3, 1994.
↑ Historic Preservation Law of the Town of Amherst (Sections 6 and 7, Chapter 121). Town Board of the Town of Amherst, New York. October 3, 1994.
↑ "Historic Preservation". Village of Williamsville. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
↑ "Historic Preservation in Amherst, New York" (PDF). Town of Amherst. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
↑ "Cultural Resource Information System (CRIS)".

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Historic Preservation Law of the Town of Amherst (Section 2, Chapter 121). Town Board of the Town of Amherst, New York. October 3, 1994.

[2] Historic Preservation Law of the Town of Amherst (Sections 6 and 7, Chapter 121). Town Board of the Town of Amherst, New York. October 3, 1994.

[3] "Historic Preservation". Village of Williamsville. Retrieved August 15, 2021.

[4] "Historic Preservation in Amherst, New York" (PDF). Town of Amherst. Retrieved August 15, 2021.

[5] "Cultural Resource Information System (CRIS)".

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]