File:Edward H. Webster House, Buffalo, New York - 20210626.jpg

English: The Edward H. Webster House, 430 Prospect Avenue, Buffalo, New York, June 2021. One of the earliest commissions accepted by the locally-based architectural firm of Swan & Faulkner, which had been founded only two years earlier, the Webster House dates to 1885. Though the integrity of its original design has suffered due to various alterations in the intervening years, some interesting features remain visible, above all its roof: an interesting juxtaposition of a steeply-pitched hipped structure pierced by prominent front and side gables, with a corner turret (which in actuality is better described as a two-story oriel) bedecks the right-hand side with its distinctive bell-shaped roof. The composite façade makes for an interesting contrast, too: brick on the ground floor, clapboard above. Edward H. Webster (1852-1920) was the house's longtime owner; though he and his father Ellis (partners in the firm of E. Webster & Son) began as coal merchants, by the time the younger Webster moved in to this house they'd branched out into the trade that would soon enough become the main focus of their business: the harvesting (generally from Lake Erie near the mouth of Buffalo River), storage, and delivery of ice. He was the vice-president and general manager of what was now called the Webster-Citizens Ice Company in 1903, the year he and his wife Mary decamped for even more luxurious digs on Lincoln Parkway.