File:Christian Laube House, Buffalo, New York - 20211218.jpg

English: The Christian Laube House, 45 Woodley Road, Buffalo, New York, December 2021. Shortly after its completion in 1928, this elegant two-story manse was opened to the public as a stop on that year's edition of the Buffalo Evening News' annual "Homes Beautiful Tour" (an annual event showcasing the best of the area's "showpieces of modern home building art"), and ultimately served as a beacon luring homebuyers to the tract of land that was being marketed at that time by Cleveland Hill Properties. (The moniker "Cleveland Hill" now denotes a separate but nearby neighborhood, centered on the intersection of Cleveland Drive and Harlem Road in the adjacent Town of Cheektowaga; the neighborhood today is properly known as Treehaven or Judges' Row.) Promotional literature correctly noted the relative rarity of the house's Spanish Colonial style in this region of the country, but opined nevertheless that it was "one that everyone at all home-minded should not overlook". Remarkable was the harmony between the interior and exterior: the warm-hued Portland cement stucco of the façade was matched in the interior by imitation stucco wallpaper trimmed in oak, while the requisite tile roof found its echo with tiled ceilings and walls in the kitchen and breakfast room. Hand-wrought iron rails adorn the front steps and the arcaded second-floor balcony. Passersby on the house tour would have seen Oriental rugs in the interior that were loaned by E. A. Bistany, furniture from the Maisel Furniture Company on Fillmore Avenue, and a baby grand piano courtesy of the Erion Piano Company. The house was very soon afterward purchased by its namesake original owner (1879-1960). Born Christian Gottlieb Laubengeiger in Großbettigen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, he was a partner in his brother Charles' restaurant business, whose longstanding flagship was Laube's Old Spain Restaurant in the downtown Theater District. Laube continued living in the house until his death.