2010
photos
Facade and south elevation - William
H. Bayliss House
AKA Bayliss-Oshei
House
360 Depew Avenue, Buffalo, NY
History
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 |
NW Corner Depew and Beard Avenues.
Tudor Revival
style.
Former site of the Lewis
J. Bennett House. Bennett was the developer of Central Park.
Terra
cotta chimney
pots ..... Slate roof
Left bay:
Gable
roof with vergeboard
..... Angled basket
weave brick patterns ..... Label
molding
Basket
weave brick patterns
Ogee
arch over leaded glass windows
Entrance: Tudor
Revival compound
arch with Gibbs
surround
Vergeboard
..... Drop finial
..... Half-timbering
..... Copper corbel
Medina
sandstone curb
South
Elevation![]() Half-timbering ![]() ![]() Slate roof ![]() Spandrel panel: Quatrefoils in upper corners flank top of the center cinquefoil |