210 Niagara Street

Stockbroker Tudor - 210 Niagara Street – 1929

Slate roof, all leaded glass windows, built in 1929, remodeled and restored with imagination and creativeness by present owners who preferred the charm and quality of an older home to present day new construction.

This house was designed in the Tudor style, which despite the name covered a wide variety of English medieval architecture as adapted to modern needs. As such, this house is typical of the middle class Tudor dwellings popular in the 1920s. (This style was so popular that it was sometimes referred to as “Stockbroker Tudor!”)

A variety of materials were used on this cross-gabled house to achieve an overall picturesque effect. Stucco is the principal material, but brick is used for the recessed front entrance and the tall front chimney that pierces the mass; clapboards are used in the upper section of the front gable. The tall, narrow windows are grouped in bands, and are the original steel frame widows with leaded casements.

A significant survival is the original slate roof, one of the few left in North Tonawanda; unfortunately, these tend to be replaced with cheaper material, to the detriment of the exterior effectiveness of the original designs.

Also notable is the original attached one-car garage, a nod to the increasing importance of the automobile in American life; however, it seems quite small by today’s standards!

Inside the home, the interior has recently been “opened up” to correspond with current ideas of interior design and family living. Note the original doors, built of wide planks and secured by wooden pegs, a continuance of the medieval design.

This house was built in 1929 for insurance agent Evan M. Davies; his firm, E. M. Davies & Co., had been located at the corner of Main and Niagara Streets in Tonawanda since 1893.