Drawing of the Buxton House in its prime, from the Illustrated Historical Atlas of Erie County, NY (Beers, 1880)
By the time he constructed his brick home at the corner of Pleasant Avenue and Southwestern Boulevard in 1969, Braley Kelley Buxton was 52 years old and had lived in Western New York for 33 years. He and a son had served in the Civil War when their 67th Regiment, New York State Militia, was called up briefly in 1863. This handsome Italiantate home was the second home he had constructed for his family; his twelfth child was born shortly after the family moved in. |
Photo of the Buxton House with family members, surrounded by young trees, date unknown.
Image source: Hamburg Historical Society
Buxton was a brickmaker and it was a family business; the boys did the heavy labor of making the bricks, the girls were tasked with turning the green bricks twice a day to facilitiate drying. Buxton died in 1877, his wife three years later. Son Henry and his wife lived in the house until 1900. |
The Buxton House when it served as tax office, apartments, and Lindy's Buxton Inn. Image source: Hamburg Then & Now (Hamburg Historical Society publication)
Over the next 100 years, the house became an enduring landmark in the Town of Hamburg. In 1986, Ronald Jewitt purchased the property and utlilized it for his tax preparation services, rental apartments, and the Buxton Inn. The last operator of the Inn, Bill Lundy, ran Lindy's Buxton Inn until March 22, 2007 |
March 23, 2007. Image credit: Derek Gee, Buffalo News
At around 6 a.m. on March 22, 2007, a fire began in the bar area of the Buxton Inn. Fifteen area fire companies responded to the fire, involving more than 75 volunteer firefighters. When the fire was out, the brick shell of the main structure remained, and much discussion followed about saving the historic structure. But the house was not classified as an historic landmark because the Town of Hamburg did not have such a program in place before the fire. No historic preservation tax credit were available as a result. The owner determined that his only recourse was demolition. |
Site of the Buxton House, 2011
The site is vacant in 2011 and for sale. Special thanks to Peter Brown, Martha Hunt, and Barb Vile of the Hamburg Historical Society for their assistance with this pictorial. |