180 Summer

E. B. Green House
180 Summer Street, Buffalo, New York

TEXT beneath Illustrations

Click on photos to enlarge

The Summer Street path to the house which is not easily visible to passersby.

Gable roof. Corbel table. Wall gable dormer

Classic portico

Wrought-iron balcony.
Entablature: stylized Modillions below cornice; Guttae; Doric columns.

Wide overhanging eaves. Curved, segmented brick arch with keystone over windows.

Rear of house. Unusually large for Buffalo, a 1-1/2 acre lot .

Architect	Green & Wicks
Owners	E. B. Green was listed for a year as the owner of this house, and many have assumed that he lived here. However, there is some doubt about this. It was not unheard of for an owner to achieve anonymity by having the architect list the home in his name. After the first year, the Josiah Letchworths, E. B. Green's wife's relatives, occupied the house until Darwin R. Martin (Darwin D. Martin's son) purchased it it 1947. In 1967 Mr. & Mrs. Max B. E. Clarkson became the owners. For a few years in the 1990s, the house was unoccupied, but new owners bought the house in the late 1990s.
Erected	c. 1906 See also: Highlights of Buffalo's History, 1906
Style	The most distinctive feature of the house, the Classic Revival portico, was not original to the house. The original portico probably was in the Gothic Revival style which was popular . Note the unusual wall gable dormer in the photo below. The feature was popular on nearby Delaware Avenue mansions in the 1840s, and thus out of date. The reason Letchworth (and Green, who was also from Auburn) would have had his Buffalo house designed in a decidedly out-of-fashion style was that his Auburn estate looked that way. Wall gable dormers are not commonly found in the city of Buffalo today because succeeding waves of development demolished homes and built according to then-current fashion.
Site	One and a half acres of country privacy in the heart of downtown Buffalo.

Source of information: Preservation Coalition tour of Summer Street in July 2000, Tim Tielman tour guide.
Photos and their arrangement © 2002 Chuck LaChiusa.


The Summer Street path to the house which is not easily visible to passersby.			Gable roof. Corbel table. Wall gable dormer

Classic portico	Wrought-iron balcony. Entablature: stylized Modillions below cornice; Guttae; Doric columns.	Wide overhanging eaves. Curved, segmented brick arch with keystone over windows.	Rear of house. Unusually large for Buffalo, a 1-1/2 acre lot .