History

Excerpts from
Forgotten Buffalo & Tours: The Bayliss-Oshei Residence

Located in Buffalo’s Central Park Community, the Bayliss-Oshei house sits directly across from Burke’s Green on land that was originally the Lewis J. Bennett estate.  The Bennett House was the first home built in Central Park in the 1880's and demolished in the early 1930s. The large parcel of land that made up the Bennett Estate was divided into 12 separate Central Park residences.

William H. Bayliss purchased two of these lots at the corner of Depew & Beard to make up the 360 Depew Avenue parcel. He commissioned Buffalo architect Harvey Staring Horton to create plans for the current Tudor-style structure. A former President of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Horton began his career with Carrere & Hastings in New York City and then worked with Buffalo architect George Cary before starting his own firm in 1916.

In 1935, 360 Depew Avenue would become the home to Bayliss, his wife Bessie Cowan, son James and daughter Mary Elizabeth.... Bayliss passed away in 1951. In 1954, two years after the death of her mother Bessie Bayliss, Mary Elizabeth and her husband Robert Chittenden Oshei purchased 360 Depew from the Bayliss estate and made it their home for the next 55 years... Oshei founded Fibron Products in 1949 ... Oshei was the son of Bernard F. Oshei, a brother of John R. Oshei, the founder of Trico Products.

The Bayliss-Oishei House, 360 Depew Avenue at Beard Avenue, Buffalo, New York, May 2020.

A paragon of the Tudor Revival style that was popular at the time, the house was built in 1935 from a design by architect Harvey Staring Horton, who began with an unusual cruciform design and then added an entrance framed by a compound Tudor arch and a handsome Gibbs surround, with a pointed-arched window above made from leaded glass.  

The two "wings" of the building flanking the entrance feature steep, half-timbered gables, large bay windows, and façades of brickwork in a basket-weave pattern.  

The son of a Civil War veteran, William H. Bayliss (1884-1951) got his start in the grocery business as travelling salesman for the wholesale concern of W. H. Granger & Company, then became president of the Fuller Canneries Company and the Tugwell-Wiseman Company (vegetable- and fruit-canning concerns), of the Bank of South Dayton, of the Erie Lumber Company, and business advisor to the Colonnade Company (owner of various Cleveland-area restaurants). The diversity of his business investments helped keep Bayliss afloat during the Great Depression, during which time, in fact, he had the house built.  

The house was purchased from the Bayliss estate by Robert Chittenden Oishei (1919-1999), son-in-law of William's wife Bessie, nephew of John Oishei, founder of the Trico Corporation, and himself founder of Fibron Products, a manufacturer of laminated wood products for the cutlery and hardware industries, specializing in knife handles. Oishei's widow continued living in the house until her death in 2009. The house remains privately owned.

- Andre Carrotflower, Wikimedia Commons, 19 May 2020