File:Henry W. Wendt Summer House, Wendt Beach County Park, Evans, New York - 20210726.jpg

English: Seen in July 2021 at Wendt Beach County Park in Evans, New York is what was once the summer home of Henry W. Wendt. Much about the early history of the house is unclear, including the matter of when it was constructed: most sources have it built at an unspecified date in the latter half of the 19th century, at which time the land now comprising the park was a farmstead belonging consecutively to Henry R. Levers and Adolph Knab. However, given the house's Colonial Revival architectural style (note the shallow-pitched side-gabled roof, strict façadal symmetry, and especially the fanlight above the entrance) and its non-appearance in a set of 1920s-era aerial survey photos, the date of 1934 cited in the Town of Evans' Local Waterfront Revitalization Program is more likely. At any rate, it's certain that Wendt owned the property by 1930. Born in 1891, he was the head of the Buffalo Forge Company, a third-generation scion of one of the most prominent families in Buffalo's German-American community, and a well-known member of the local "horsey set" whose 164-acre estate, which he named "The Ridgewood", was for a time the venue for the annual Derby Horse Show. After Wendt's death, the Erie County Parks Commission, long desirous of a lakefront property to use as a beach park, almost immediately began acquiring plans to purchase the property, and despite vociferous opposition from town residents who objected to the removal of such a valuable waterfront property from the tax rolls, Wendt Beach became a county park two years later. Sadly, thanks to the county's failure to appropriate any money for park development, the mansion began deteriorating almost immediately after they took ownership, and it's been completely locked and boarded up since 2010, the second of two spates of vandalism that saw windows broken and copper pipes stripped from the basement. The scenario since the county takeover has alternated between rumors of demolition, halfhearted spates of nominal building maintenance, and rumors of redevelopment schemes (reuse proposals have ranged from a bed & breakfast inn to an upscale Italian restaurant). The latest news as of when this photo was taken falls into the latter category: July 2021 saw the approval of a spending plan for $121 million in federal stimulus funds related to the COVID-19 pandemic which included an appropriation of $4 million to repair the mansion.