Hamburg’s historic Buxton Inn coming down one brick at a time
The historic Buxton Inn in Hamburg is coming down, brick by hand-made brick.
The town’s efforts to save the approximately 140-year-old structure at the intersection of Southwestern Boulevard and Pleasant Avenue failed. No buyer was found for the former hotel and insurance office, which was damaged in a fire in March 2007.
Owner Ron Jewitt, who had run his insurance agency out of the building before the fire, filed for a demolition permit about 10 days ago.
Work by McKillen Enterprises of Angola has started on the building, but the demolition won’t be a wrecking ball scene. Instead, workers will be trying to salvage the bricks from the building’s exterior for potential reuse.
Howard Domin said he’s interested. He went to the site Tuesday. Domin said his house on Pleasant Avenue was constructed from bricks from the same local brickyard. He placed the house’s construction at about 1835.
“This place and my place were built roughly the same time from the same bricks,” Domin said.
He said when he had an addition built on his home, he wasn’t able to find period-style bricks to match the original house — but they’re there on the Buxton.
The Buxton Inn was originally the family home of Braley Buxton, a captain in the New York State Militia during the Civil War. After the war, he — or more specifically his 15 children — built the distinctive house from bricks made from nearby clay deposits.
“I’m just kind of shocked it’s coming down,” said Town Historian James Baker. “We don’t have that many buildings in the town that would be suitable for the national list of historic sites, but that’s one of them.”
Hamburg Code Enforcement Officer Kurt Allen led efforts to save the building, contacting state preservation officials and persuading Jewitt to wait almost a year to demolish the building, offering it up for sale.
“There wasn’t enough local support to preserve it,” Allen said. “We have such little historic stock in the town — particularly outside of the villages [Hamburg and Blasdell] — that to lose that was a lost opportunity.”
But the cost of restoring the building would have been high, Allen said, and from a preservation standpoint, some of the changes to the building had been detrimental.
“It’s certainly disappointing. That was a historical building,” said Hamburg Supervisor Steven Walters. “We made every effort to save the building, but the owner felt the building was beyond repair.
“He did work with the town in trying to market the property with the building on there, but apparently has had no success.”
Jewitt was not available to comment.
