File:Bliss-Hayes House, Buffalo, New York - 20230224.jpg

English: The Bliss-Hayes House, 721 West Ferry Street, Buffalo, New York, February 2023. An example of the Queen Anne style of architecture whose squat dimensions and bottom-heavy massing show considerable influence from the Shingle style, the design of this residence is a good example of the upper-class residential architecture of the error (c. 1891) and is also typical of the work of prolific local architect Charles D. Swan. Octagonal forms are a recurring motif that manifests itself in the tent-roofed corner tower as well as the projecting front porch, and the style's requisite Classical ornamentation comes in the form of Tuscan columns on the porch and porte-cochère. According to a 1909 write-up in the pages of the Buffalo Commercial, the interior was originally notable for its use of a wide variety of "rare and costly woods, as mahogany, quartered oak, cypress, sycamore, and bird's-eye maple". The house was built at a cost of about $40,000 for Joshua S. Bliss (1842-1937), a Massachusetts native in the midst of an interesting and multifaceted life: he spent his youth and young manhood working as a crewman on a whaling ship before joining the military in time to see combat in the Civil War, then upon his return to civilian life entered the lumber industry. He was employed as owner of a shingle mill in Tonawanda during the very brief period in which he lived at 721 West Ferry, but after selling the house the following year he would move on to further success as a real estate investor, serving as owner and manager of the upscale Berkeley Apartments on Johnson Park and eventually moving back to Massachusetts where he died a wealthy man. Longer tenured at the address was second owner Dr. Francis Mason Hayes (1853-1916), a physician in private practice who resided there until moving to Lewiston in 1906. The house was subdivided into apartments in the early 1940s and remains so configured today.