North Tonawanda History Museum © 9 Louisa Parkway

5-bedroom, 3-1/2 baths home built in 1942, featuring Judith Gibson art, home has had four owners

This small house is unusual in that it combines the side-gabled gambrel roof of the Dutch Colonial Revival style with a prominent front-gabled entry common in the Tudor style. Otherwise it is typical of the many compact frame dwellings erected during the 1920s. The generous gambrel roof allows for a full second story, providing more space than is immediately apparent from the street. The upper pitch of the roof is continued in the projecting shed dormers.

The most striking exterior feature is the large multi-pane picture windows in front, which were probably installed after the house was built.

This house was built for mechanical engineer Howard I. L. Weyers in 1926, and was among the earliest to be constructed on Louisa Parkway. Weyers was the chief engineer of the Auto Wheel Coaster Co., manufacturers of “Coaster Wagons, Sleighs, Scooters and Baby Walkers, Pedal Bikes and Work Benches.” Weyers’ wife Louisa worked as a bookkeeper for the Twin City Dairy Products Co., so theirs was an example of a two-income household.

Louisa Parkway was laid out around 1924 through a tract of land owned by James Sweeney Thompson, in order to facilitate development; he is said to have stated that he named it for his deceased sister.

The Parkway was part of what was originally a large wooded tract known as Sweeney’s Grove or Sweeney’s Park. James Sweeney Thompson, lived in Buffalo but had a real estate office in the Sweeney Building, corner of Webster and Sweeney Streets. In 1926, there were only two houses on the street, no doubt 9 Louisa, and one owned by Harold W. Hill. At an unidentified time, it is written that Mr. Hill and Mr. Thompson were on the same train to Buffalo and sat next to each other. Mr. Hill asked Mr. Thompson why he named the street Louisa Parkway. Thompson said that he had named it in memory of his departed sister, Louisa, who was very dear to him. He said he wanted her name to be perpetuated. Thus the street became a monument to his sister’s memory.

Ruth and John Russ lived in the house in April 1945 and sold it to George Sheldon in April 1966. John Russ was a principal in the National Grinding Wheel Company. The grandson of the Russ’s obtained descriptive information from his mother for us. She remembers it having medium brown walls in the living room and front hall and very rough plaster with archways into the living room and small sitting room at the end of the living room, the archways later being removed to make it one larger room opening into the living room from the front hall. The plaster was ground down into a swirl instead of sharp points and everything was painted light green—Mrs. Russ’s favorite color. A pair of double French doors were removed and replaced with a wall of windows. Bookcases were put on both sides of the door. The woodwork was oak. The original stairs went east to west out of the breakfast nook and were removed to north and south direction.

When she lived there, according to the board that was pushed between the two ironwood trees in the front yard, 1927 was carved into it as the date the house was built. After many years of everyone sitting on it, it just fell out one day. When the Russ family moved, the house had 3 bedrooms and 1-1/2 baths, a full attic, and a built in cedar closet.