Duane Lyman in Buffalo, NY

(1886-1966)

Born in Lockport, in 1886, Duane S. Lyman was the son of Richard B. and Molly Hayes Lyman. He attended the Manlius (N.Y.) School School for a year after graduating from Lafayette High School in 1904.

His attended Yale University 's Sheffield Scientific School where he studied architecture and mechanical engineering. After graduating in 1908, he followed the example of many young architects of the time and traveled abroad. An extended stay in Europe with his 1911 bride, Elizabeth Stimson, ended in 1913 when, on the eve of World War I, the couple returned to Buffalo.

1912-1919 Lansing Bley & Lyman: Lyman began his professional career in 1912, then with the firm of Lansing & Bley.

Lansing Bley & Lyman Example: W. Acheson Smith House, 327 Buffalo Avenue, Niagara Falls, NY (1919. Built for W. Acheson Smith, the VP of Acheson Graphite Co.)

When Lyman volunteered for military service during the war, however, he severed his ties with the firm. He served in the nation's capital, emerging with the rank of major.

1919-1939? Bley & Lyman: Coming home to Buffalo after the war, Lyman formed a partnership with Lawrence Bley (pron. "bleye") that lasted twenty years. The new Tudor Revival Saturn Club was one of the first commissions to come their way. Many would list it as the best building Lyman designed. (See also Bley Lyman & Lansing.)

1939?-1966 Lyman & Associates: After Bley died (1938?), Lyman's firm became known as Duane Lyman & Associates.

See also: Drafting tools from the 1950s used by architect John Laskowski, a Notre Dame graduate who spent his entire career in Lyman's office.

Personal life

An enthusiastic sportsman for half a century, he hunted and fished on his approximately 100-acre farm near South Wales, did considerable hunting in Western New York and Canada, fished in Florida and New Brunswick, Canada, and maintained a hunting and fishing lodge near Bic., Que. He was a member of the Anglo-American Fish & Game Club of Bic, where he maintained his lodge since 1955.

Lyman's prime hobby was gardening and he raised flowers at both his Buffalo and Thunder Bay residences.

He was a member of the Saturn Club and its dean in 1946, life member and director of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy.

He was survived by three daughters.

His funeral services were conducted at First Presbyterian Church. He was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Professional life

Among other works were over 100 school buildings, many churches, and numerous large city and suburban houses.

At a time when earnest modernist architects of the International Style sought to express the new age in buildings inspired by industrial design and made of the new materials of plate glass and steel, Lyman celebrated the warm textures of the traditional materials of brick, stone and wood and the reassuring feeling of the past. A talented conservative, Lyman could design in a variety of historical styles with finesse; his buildings always display fine craftsmanship and good taste.

Lyman died in 1966 in his home at 78 Oakland Place. Local newspapers described him as the "dean of Western New York Architecture."

Buildings designed by Lyman in Buffalo include the following:

After Lyman died, the chief designer of Duane Lyman & Assoc., Guy H. Baldwin, AIA (1912-1987) went into partnership with Peter Castle, a grandson of Duane Lyman.  They did business as Lyman, Baldwin and Castle from the same office at 505 Delaware Ave. for four or five years.  The partnership was dissolved in the early 70ís and Baldwin worked on his own thereafter.
Special thanks to Francis R. Kowsky and Bruce Baldwin or sharing their research.

Other sources: Obituary in the Courier Express, May 1 1966

Page by Chuck LaChiusa
| ...Home Page ...| ..Buffalo Architecture Index...| ..Buffalo History Index... .|....E-Mail ...| .
.