Nardin Academy
O Fortune '07
at 'Nottingham'
January 18, 2007

"Nottingham" is the largest mansion to be built on the former grounds of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition which were leased from Bronson Rumsey. This was the site of the Honduras pavilion.

This imposing 19,500-square-foot Onondaga limestone mansion with Tudor Revival details, was erected 1929-1933, for Annie Lang Miller. She was the daughter of brewer Gerhard Lang. Her husband, Edwin George Simon Miller, who had been president of the Lang Brewery and the German-American Bank, had died in 1915.

The principal architect was Duane Lyman, of Bley & Lyman, who also designed 800 West Ferry, the Saturn Club, the Buffalo Club, and Federal Courthouse at Niagara Square.

Mrs. Miller was an amateur painter, so the original plan included a studio with windows facing north and east. The Millers were devout Catholics, so the house also had an oratorio, and their religion may account for the prevalence of the grape motif which is an important symbol in Catholicism.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Miller died before the house was completed. Her son, Edwin Lang Miller, inherited the house.

In 1960, Edwin Lang Miller donated the property to nuns who converted the house into the Nottingham Academy of the Sacred heart with a cloistered residence on the third floor.

In 1973, the mansion became Nichols Middle School. In 2001, Nichols sold the property to Bradley Randaccio, a Buffalo attorney and developer, who divided the land into five building lots, razing a gymnasium in the process.

In 2002, Randaccio sold the Miller mansion to Gerald W. Schaffer, Jr., an attorney, and his wife, Natalie.

In 2004, the home was purchased by Richard & Danielle Snowden. It now serves as their residence, with children Jacob, Aubrey, Robert and Ashley. The Snowdens have performed extensive repairs and restoration work on the property during their first year of residency and it is expected the work will continue for the next couple of years, to complete it as a family home.