The Architecture of Thomas Wisedell

While Olmsted and Vaux were creating Central Park and Prospect Park (as well as other smaller projects), they were also producing a park system for Buffalo, New York, where Thomas Wisedell would play an important role assisting Calvert Vaux in designing park structures.  This commission came to Olmsted & Vaux in 1868 and is viewed by many historians as the culmination and maturation of the ideas worked out in those earlier parks. Though most of the park structures in Buffalo were not designed until 1874 and 1875, Calvert Vaux and Thomas Wisedell had created the preliminary designs for the refectory (later known as the Parade House) in 1870 and 1871 while also working out the plans for the Concert Grove House and Pavilion in Prospect Park.  It is also quite plausible, however, that those structures were actually designed after the Parade House in Buffalo.

In the summer of 1868 William Dorsheimer had asked Frederick Law Olmsted to visit Buffalo to discuss the idea of creating parks for the growing city.  Olmsted, along with engineer John Bogart, arrived in Buffalo in August as part of their trip to Illinois where they were working on plans for Riverside, a planned suburb southwest of Chicago.  Since Calvert Vaux was still in Europe, most of preliminary work was done by Olmsted and Bogart who presented their initial ideas on August 25th.  It was then decided to have Olmsted & Vaux create a formal plan and over the coming weeks, Olmsted worked out various locations for potential parks.  Upon Calvert Vaux’ return from Europe on November 18th, the two men put the final touches on their report which was sent to Dorsheimer who presented their ideas on November 23rd.

Both Olmsted and Vaux traveled to Buffalo in May 1869 basically to reiterate their ideas for the parks but also to give details about the surveys they required to lay out proper plans and provide estimates.  The two men returned to Buffalo in August when they presented initial ideas for three separated parks which would be connected through a series of parkways, avenues and squares.

As noted in previous blogs, Olmsted & Vaux were fired from Central Park in April of 1870 and Thomas Wisedell had become one of Calvert Vaux’ principle assistants with  Prospect Park and Washington Park in Brooklyn.  It was perhaps in the summer of 1870, when Vaux and Wisedell began designing the refectory for the Parade Grounds at Buffalo; a project which would prove to be the largest single park structure to be designed under the care of Olmsted & Vaux.  The refectory was the first of the park structures to be designed (though not the first to be constructed) in Buffalo, perhaps to give the park commissioners a glimpse into the scale, style and importance that architecture would play in their burgeoning parks.

Like the Concert Grove house designed at the same time in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, this too exhibited influences from Indo-Islamic architecture as well as, French, English, Swiss, and Moorish designs, most importantly, with a tower indicative of the square minarets of North Africa and Islamic Spain.  This represented perhaps one of the earliest uses of of that type of square tower which would later proliferate across the United States between the late 1880’s and the 1920’s.

Though the preliminary scheme for the Refectory had been created in 1871, Vaux was asked to revise its plans in July 1874 and over the summer, he and Thomas Wisedell prepared the working drawings with plans, details and color schemes.  The building had an H-shaped plan and measured 272 feet long and fifty feet wide.  On its east and west sides were two-story verandahs, each extending 250 feet.  Like the Concert Grove House in Brooklyn, this too was constructed of turned, incised and carved wood, principally painted in a warm, creamy tone with of brown, red and green all accented with black to help separate the colors.

At the southeast corner of the building was a tower reaching 138 feet high which had been redesigned with a viewing platform allowing for views over the city and countryside in all directions. This tower was also designed to create ventilation for the building’s heating as well as the massive kitchen.  A smaller tower was placed at the northeast corner of the building, marking the grand staircase on the interior.

The building was principally entered through a large vestibule on west which had men’s and women’s waiting rooms on either side.  The vestibule opened into a grand dining room which measured 100 feet long and 50 feet wide.  Also on the first floor were private dining rooms, separate club rooms for both men and women.  At the east end was a large bar with the kitchen and other service facilities.  The entire room was painted in a warm, creamy tone with dark brown used on the ceiling beams and other structural elements.  Two rows  brightly painted, cast-iron columns supported the second-floor ballroom which was reached by massive, black walnut staircase.

The ballroom measured 210 feet long, 50 feet wide and with a 35 foot high ceiling ornamented by carved, wooden trusses.  At the east end was a gallery for the orchestra with a private room for the conductor on one side, and a ladies reception room on the other.  The ballroom was also designed so it could be separated into as many as three large rooms with seven-foot tall, removable screens. The color scheme for the entire building was brown and cream with red and green accents.

One of the more innovative features was in the design of the French windows which opened out onto the each level of the verandah.  Protecting these windows were sliding shutters which, when opened, created an ornamented paneling around the room.

On the north side of the Refectory was a circular platform for dancing with music provided by an small orchestra located on the northeast wing of the verandah.  On the south side of the building and located along Best Street, were a series of stables and sheds connected to the verandah on the southeast and forming an enclosed yard for for horses.  These were designed by Calvert Vaux in the summer of 1874 (possibly without the aid of Thomas Wisedell) and echoed the earlier lodge and shelter constructed at the Parade Grounds in Brooklyn in the late 1860’s.

Excavation for the foundations and cellar of the Refectory began in July of 1875 and by early fall, the cellar walls and piers for the internal columns had been constructed by Louis Lenhardt.  Early in October, Joseph Churchyard was hired to construct the Refectory and by the end of the year, the building (except for the tower) was enclosed and work continued to progress through the winter.  Thomas Wisedell arrived in Buffalo in early March of 1876 to inspect the building’s progress.  (Wisedell was also in Buffalo to design the stonework around the recently completed City/ County Building, but that will be left for a later posting.)  While in Buffalo, Wisedell gave a tour of the building to a reporter from the Buffalo Courier, and it was through that interview that the fullest description of Refectory exists.

As construction of the Parade House was progressing over the spring of 1876, Frederick Law Olmsted had commissioned a map of the city of Buffalo showing the newly constructed park and parkways. At that time he also commissioned a series of photographs and watercolors to be displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia where Olmsted ambitiously described Buffalo as, “the best planned city, as to its streets, public places, and grounds, in the United States, if not the world.”

As it would turn out, the watercolor of The Parade would be the best surviving illustration of the Refectory. The building was officially opened on July 4, 1876 to a crowd of over 15,000 people. Unfortunately, the Refectory in its grandest extant was rather short-lived. Around midnight, on August 27, 1877, a fire broke out in kitchen and soon spread, destroying all but the southwest wing of the verandah. Somehow, the sheds and stables were also spared. Soon after, the debris was cleared, the cellar was covered and the extant wing was enclosed.

Once the insurance money was collected, the commissioners decided to rebuilt the structure, but at only about one-half of the original size. Rather than contacting either Calvert Vaux or Thomas Wisedell, the commissioners decided to hire architect Cyrus K. Porter and the builder Joseph Churchyard to reconstruct the western verandah exactly as it had been (while reusing the part that had not been destroyed). The commissioners argues that since the building was basically being rebuilt pretty much as it had existed, it was easier to have a local architect draw up the contracts and supervise its construction. The rest of the building with the large dining room and grand ballroom were also reconstructed, though on a smaller scale. Unfortunately, the verandah and tower at the eastern end of the building were not rebuilt. It is from this reconstruction that gives us that best understanding of the original building. The Refectory reopened in May 1879 and over the coming decades, the building did get remodeled a couple more times before eventually being demolished in 1903.

Though the Refectory was the first to building to be designed, it was actually one of the of the last park structures designed by Calvert Vaux and Thomas Wisedell to be constructed in Buffalo. In the next post, the structures designed for Delaware Park will be examined.

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Further Reading:

• Annual Reports of the Buffalo Park Commissioners. 1869-1878 (Buffalo, N.Y.).
• Kowsky, Francis, R, editor, The Best Planned City: The Olmsted Legacy in Buffalo (Buffalo: The Burchfield Art Center, 1992).
• Kowsky Francis R., The Best Planned City in the World: Olmsted, Vaux, and the Buffalo Park System (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013).
• Kowsky, Francis R., Country, Park & City: The Architecture and Life of Calvert Vaux (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
• The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted. Volume VI: The Years of Olmsted, Vaux & Company 1865-1874 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).