Butler Mansion
It was to be the biggest dinner party of the new century. Servants had been busy for days arranging details. The giant crystal chandelier had been lowered in the entrance hall and fitted with new candles to illuminate the arrival of the social, industrial and commercial leaders of the region. State and national political leaders would be attending. The guest of honor was to be President William McKinley, who was visiting Buffalo and the Pan-American Exposition.
The date was September 6, 1901. That afternoon, the president was mortally wounded by an assassin during a public reception, the final event on the president’s schedule at the exposition. The state dinner, of course, was cancelled.
It was appropriate, though, that the event would have taken place at the home of banker George L. Williams and his wife, Annie, because the home can be described as "palatial," fit to host a visiting head of state. The opulent Georgian Revival mansion was designed by famed New York architect Stanford White and built 1895-98.
White also designed the adjacent James Metcalfe family house at 125 North Street. It was demolished in 1980, but the dining room and library have been reinstalled in Buffalo State College’s Rockwell Hall. White also designed a home for the older brother of George Williams, Charles, at 690 Delaware. But it is the Williams-Butler mansion that is the jewel of the neighborhood, built on what was the most prestigious corner in the city.
A Corinthian portico projects from the north street side of the mansion, trimmed with a balustrade that marks the roof. The main entrance is on the north side of the residence beneath a porte cochere, designed with privacy and weather protection in mind. The rooms on the main floor border a broad central hall paneled in quarter-sawn oak, dominated by a spectacular staircase and a three-story chandelier.
The chandelier was in danger of being discarded when the Delaware North Companies bought the house in 1979. When it was cleaned, it was found to be gold-plated, not merely gold-leafed as had been thought, worth in excess of $200,000.
The library features a huge marble fireplace, spacious enough for a six-foot tall person to walk under the mantle with its sea-creature decorated frieze. Throughout the house, with its decorated plaster ceilings and exquisite carved woods, no detail has been spared.
In 1905, the home was sold to Buffalo Evening News publisher Edward H. Butler and his wife, Kate. He lived there until his death in 1914, and members of the Butler family stayed in the house until the 1970s. The house was sold to the William C. Baird Foundation, which subsequently gave it to the Roswell Park Hospital. In 1979, Delaware North Companies bought the house from Roswell, then demolished the Metcalfe house to use as a parking lot.
Delaware North renovated the house over an eight-year period at a cost of $6 million, then sold the building in 1990 to Varity Corp. to serve as its world headquarters. Varity removed the parking lot, installed a lush garden, and constructed the lighted fountain located in the granite courtyard.
The property was again acquired by Delaware North Companies, whose CEO, Jeremy M. Jacobs Sr., deeded the property to SUNY Buffalo for the Jacobs Executive Development Center, a setting for corporate events, business training, conferences and social functions.
Sources:
Chuck LaChiusa, "Williams-Butler House," at the "Buffalo as an Architectural Museum" Web site. The site has detailed pictures of the interior and exterior of the Butler mansion. Also see Reyner Banham et al., "Buffalo Architecture: A Guide," (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981), pp. 141-42 (Williams-Butler House); and Andy Olenick and Richard O. Reisem, Classic Buffalo: A Heritage of Distinguished Architecture (Buffalo: Canisius College Press, 1999), pp. 60-65.
Photos by Chuck LaChiusa
