File:John L. Kimberly House, Buffalo, New York - 20220317.jpg

English: The John L. Kimberly House, 63 Irving Place, Buffalo, New York, March 2022. Designed by the rather short-lived but prolific local architectural partnership of Silsbee & Marling, the Kimberly House was - along with the Thomas Bissell House on Linwood Avenue - one of a pair of homes commissioned in 1886 by real estate investor E. B. Smith as a speculative venture. Here, they were presented with an unusual problem, namely how to incorporate a home of the Shingle Style requested by the financier, with its characteristic sprawling dimensions, onto one of the small, narrow lots of the Allentown neighborhood of the city. This they did by shrinking the proportions of the building while retaining the requisite horizontal orientation through a strict layering of the façade (note that each layer projects slightly outward from the one beneath it, with a flared surface clad in fishscale shingles) and the unusual placement of the brick chimney stack front and center, emphasizing the heavy, solid massing. As usual, the entrance is hidden inside a deeply recessed, offset porch. Original owner John Liberty Kimberly (1839-1919) was a manufacturer of vinegar and pickled products who, after his initial retirement, took on a second career as an insurance agent. Kimberly and his family lived in the house from 1887 until his death.