Vitreous red brick and white terra cotta trim dress the Hotel Lafayette, the seven-story French Renaissance hotel you face in Buffalo, Erie County. Designed in the French Renaissance style, it is composed of several rectangular building units completed between 1902 and 1926, with the original portion by the firm Bethune, Bethune & Fuchs built between 1902 and 1911. This is the masterpiece of Louise Blanchard Bethune (1856–1913), celebrated as the first professional woman architect in the United States.
Take in the decorative vitreous red brick and the white terra cotta trim that frame each elevation. Additions from 1916–1917 and 1924–1926 were executed by Esenwein and Johnson, and the lobby received an Art Moderne decoration in 1942. In its prime the Lafayette was counted among the 15 finest hotels in the country, offering elevators and, in every room, hot and cold water and a telephone.
A 97 m (318 ft) antenna is attached to the building, and for a brief stretch—from September 29 to December 19, 1953—it housed the short-lived television station WBES-TV. In the 1970s and 1980s it was owned by Tran Dinh Truong. Picture Louise Blanchard Bethune, the first professional woman architect in the country, shaping this French Renaissance masterpiece in vitreous red brick.