Buffalo Spree Magazine

A tale of three kitchens
architect Max Willig’s bold moves

By Philip Nyhuis
photos by Jim Bush

This kitchen near Delaware Park was especially
created to span the width of the house. Its sliding
glass doors provide access to the garden as well as a panoramic view. The monochromatic colors of the cabinets and counters are deliberate to avoid competition with the view.

From fires in caves to high-tech temples of granite and stainless steel, the kitchen has always been a source of warmth, sustenance, and security. It’s the place families and friends naturally come together to have coffee, break bread, celebrate life’s small victories, and settle simmering disputes. Whenever there’s a serious discussion in the domestic Soprano family, for example, Tony usually talks to the long-suffering Carmela, the insolent Anthony, or the headstrong Meadow in the kitchen. It was the same in our house. Every time my dad read me the riot act or Mom offered comestible comfort, it was at the kitchen table. No wonder that many home re-design projects involve a new, improved kitchen, especially in Buffalo. That’s because so much of the city’s housing stock was built in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, before the kitchen became
the most important room in the American home.

Not long ago, I visited three new kitchens in the city and discovered that, although all are unique, they at least have three things in common: 1) each one represented a leap of faith for the homeowner since the end result is unlike anything they had imagined; 2) each owner is delighted; and 3) all were designed by the same architect, a man who insists that 1 and 2 are directly related since ultimate satisfaction with the finished project depends upon a willingness to make the Bold Move. The Bold Move is an imaginative stroke of architectural reconfiguration that transcends mere remodeling and is based on a collaboration between owner, architect, and contractor that may mean removing old rooms, building new rooms, knocking down walls, or incorporating and transforming previous rooms into something altogether new and dazzling.

This library was constructed where
the original kitchen used to be.

A panoramic view and
a new home for rare books.

Bill and Bonnie (not their real names) live in a handsome red brick house built where Mirror Lake once shimmered at the Pan American Exposition. A busy physician, Bill is also a collector of rare books, prints, maps, and manuscripts that he once kept in a library created from a former sunroom at the back of the house. Although the windows were covered to protect the books, the lack of a basement and solid foundation meant frequent cracking and resulting repair. Moreover, the couple has a beautiful back garden but had to walk outside to see it. They carefully researched architects, then called Max Willig.

After exploring half a dozen options, Willig and the owners decided the best solution was to move the library into the existing kitchen, tear down the old sunroom/library, and create a new kitchen that spans the entire width of the house and presents a panoramic view of the garden. This was achieved with a wall of sliding glass doors accented by a classical row of transom panes.

“The only thing I got hung up on was whether or not to put panes in the main windows looking out onto the garden,” recalls Bonnie. “So we compromised and put the row of panes along the top. I want people to come into this room and be dazzled by the view of the garden. So we intentionally kept the kitchen rather monochromatic.”

Outside, the new brick almost perfectly matches the old and open steps of increasing length lead down to the garden. The feeling is rather like descending a small pyramid. For Bill and Bonnie, the treasures are both within and without.

This Elmwood Village kitchen features oak cabinets and flooring, contrasting with a stainless steel table.

A new kitchen home
around the range.

On a quiet street of solid houses just a couple of blocks off the Elmwood strip, Rebecca and her two teenage daughters inhabit a white frame house with exquisite oak woodwork fashioned in the Arts & Crafts style. Their new kitchen project was inspired by the arrival of a gleaming red, four-oven Aga, the ne plus ultra of kitchen cookers, that Rebecca had managed to purchase for an astonishingly low price on eBay. Installing it in the cramped old kitchen simply wouldn’t do. Contractor Dave McMahon was already at work on another project in the house and suggested Rebecca get in touch with Max Willig.

“What’s important in the collaboration is to look at all the alternatives,” says Willig. “I work with the contractor to engage the client in exploring all the possibilities. While some owners might prefer to step back and let me make all the decisions, I know it’s critical that the client is invested in the choices and it just seems to work out that the boldest move is almost always the right move.”

The trendy Aga cooker, purchased on eBay, is the kitchen's centerpiece.

For Rebecca, that move turned out to be the unification of three rooms—the old kitchen, a pantry, and a mudroom cum makeshift office—into one large, light-filled kitchen with windows and window frames that echo the Arts & Crafts recesses and accents of the original dining room. Since the owner loved the notion of high-end contemporary design within the Mission context, contractor and architect created a stunning stainless-steel topped table with sink on a black-lacquered oak base that forms the centerpiece of the room. While the oak floor and cabinets rumble a Roycroftian ostinato, the sunlight hits the stainless steel from three sides, pouring in three times more light than the old kitchen had. Three handsome recycled industrial light fixtures above the table cast a beautiful glow. A professor who frequently hosts dinner parties for her students and colleagues, Rebecca loves her new kitchen.

“This is not just a bold move but, for me, a revolutionary move. It creates a great feeling of space and light and I’m incredibly grateful. This is a kitchen that’s comfortable for one or thirty people.”

This remodeled Richmond Avenue kitchen now provides access to the garden and a better view.

A kitchen inspired by a garden.

David lives in a three-story Victorian frame house on Richmond Avenue designed by Charles Percival, whose perhaps unfortunate historical distinction is that he also designed Darwin D. Martin’s first house (on Summit Avenue). The house on Richmond was built for John Ansteth, a prosperous jeweler from France. After Ansteth’s death, his daughter Ruth lived there with her husband Elmer Youngmann, the New York State highway engineer responsible for much of the thruway system in Western New York, one section of which still bears his name. David is only the third owner of the house and the first outside of the Ansteth/Youngmann family.

Except for its furnishings and new kitchen, the interior of the Richmond house is virtually unchanged from its original wood-paneled foyer and staircase (oak), living room (red birch), library, and dining room. The kitchen, clad in yellow pine wainscoting, was designed as a workplace for staff. The family ate in the dining room, separated from the small kitchen by two rather large pantries. David, like Bill and Bonnie, had no view of his garden and had to walk through a rustic old shed to reach the backyard. Like Rebecca and her cooker, the impetus for David’s new kitchen was his garden.

The sunroom becomes an extension
of both the kitchen and the outdoors.

“I discovered early on that you can do certain things to make these old houses completely compatible and at the same time live in an interior that is no longer available and will never be available again,” says David. “But you have to find the right architect and work with them in the right way. I got in touch with Max and told him his job was to give me access to the garden. He came back with a lot of ideas and arranged them in three potential designs.”

Through the work of contractor John Mordeno, the end result was the removal of the shed, a reconfiguration of the existing kitchen, and the addition of a new room, an extension of the kitchen that almost seems a part of the garden thanks to its wide windows and profusion of houseplants. There’s also a couch, table and chairs, and a bookcase overlooking the wisteria-covered pergola that leads to the garage.

“One of the ideas was to dump the pantries and incorporate that space into the new kitchen,” David explains. “That would probably be the modern thing to do. But I wanted to keep the pantries. You fall in love with a house and part of it is loving the structure that’s there. And the pantries work perfectly in this house. That’s why it made sense to add the room. It’s the bolder move and the best move.”

“What I could not foresee was that the function of the room totally evolved. Originally it was a place to eat but now it’s a place where the sun comes in every morning. I spend an enormous amount of time here because it’s cozy and I’ve got a nice view. The whole project evolved from solving a specific problem: garden access. If there’s a generalization to be made, it’s be bold and see what happens.”

Phil Nyhuis is a Buffalo freelance writer who loves to hang out in the kitchen.

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