Buffalo’s boutique hotel
Renovated Lafayette offerings please guests and architects
BUFFALO— Some hotels are charming, some are modern and some have storied histories.
Few have all three, unless you’re talking about the Hotel @ The Lafayette where French Renaissance interior architecture, contemporary furnishings and a fascinating past combine to create a unique experience with a down-to-earth friendliness that is a hallmark of everything Buffalo.
Built in 1904 when Buffalo was the eighth wealthiest city in America, the hotel was designated as one of the country’s top 11 luxury inns. Designed by Louise Blanchard Bethune, the first American female architect, the hotel is now on the coveted United States Register of Historic Places.
For decades, the Hotel Lafayette (as it was first called) hosted presidents and dignitaries, businessmen and local elites. But as the city gradually lost its industrial might, the hotel mirrored Buffalo’s steep economic decline.
Gradually, the Lafayette devolved into a fleabag hostelry, home to vagrants, crack addicts and assorted pigeons, its once grand public spaces and guest suites literally rotting.
Enter Rocco Termini, a prominent local developer who bought the property in 2009 and launched a three-year, $40-million (U.S.) restoration.
Rechristened as the Hotel @ The Lafayette, the 57-room boutique inn now receives praise from guests and architectural preservationists. Every room and suite is distinctly decorated, each with a Buffalo motif.
“We’re an independent hotel,” says general manager Evan Baker. “We have the flexibility to design our interiors with creativity. No cookie-cutter rooms here.”
That creativity extends to the food options. Three restaurants include the Pan American Grill & Brewery, the fine dining Bourbon and Butter and modern fusion at Butterwood Sweet & Savory.
In the Art Moderne-style lobby, locally owned Public Espresso + Coffee brews up some of the finest java in Buffalo and offers pastries from the city’s favourite bakeries.
The one drawback here is the inadequately equipped fitness studio that feels more like an afterthought than a well-planned amenity. The good news is that the general manager is working to improve the gym’s quality and appearance.
And listen up, Leafs fans: If you’re thinking of taking in a Sabres-Leafs game this season, you’ll feel right at home at the Lafayette where it’s not unusual to see blue-and-white jerseys parading the corridors. The First Niagara Center is five minutes away by the downtown light rail train.
As a microcosm of the city itself — one that flourished, floundered and flourished again — the Hotel @ The Lafayette lets you get acquainted with Buffalo’s history and culture. That’s something the chain hotels just can’t match. Isn’t what a great travelling experience should be all about? Lorne Opler is a Toronto writer. The hotel paid for his stay, but did not review or approve this story.