File:Howard F. Stimm House, Amherst, New York - 20200729.jpg

English: The Howard F. Stimm House, 895 North Forest Road, Amherst, New York, July 2020. The Stimm House falls under the umbrella of the International Style, but the resemblance to the work Frank Lloyd Wright was doing at roughly the same time is unmistakable: the varied colors and materials used in the façade (concrete blocks, rough-textured fieldstone, and stucco all feature), the cantilevered roofs and balconies, and even the radiant heating system (this was allegedly the first house in the U.S. to have one; it was designed by Raymond Viner Hall, son of the head of the contracting company that built Fallingwater, and was featured in the October 1943 issue of Heating and Ventilating Journal) all betray a clear influence. Completed in early 1942, just as the World War II-era construction supplies rations came into effect, the house was one of the first buildings designed by local architect Sebastian Tauriello, whose admiration for Wright was apparently great indeed: in 1955, he purchased the Darwin Martin House in Buffalo for use as his home and studio, and his expert maintenance of the property during his time there is credited as a main reason why that masterwork was saved from demolition. Howard Stimm, meanwhile, was notable as president of a local civil engineering firm that specialized in the building of railroads and bridges (when the North and South Grand Island Bridges were twinned in the 1960s, it was Stimm's firm that built the newer duplicates). The house is now used by the adjacent church as an event venue and meeting space.