Cortina StudioVol. 01 / Buffalo, NY

The Property Issue

Rooms with a story, photographed so you can walk them before you ever open the door.

Featuring the Dorsheimer House, 434 Delaware Ave.

A restored brick building with a mansard roof photographed from the street

From the studio

Every space has a mood. Our job is to show it.

A listing photo is often the first time someone meets a building. It should feel like standing in the doorway: the light, the materials, the way one room opens into the next.

We shoot interiors and exteriors with careful composition and balanced light, then edit for true color, so brick looks like brick, wood looks warm, and every room reads clearly on a phone or a billboard.

Here is one of the spaces we have photographed.

Fidel Cortina

The story behind the rooms

A house with a past

The building in these pages is the William Dorsheimer House at 434 Delaware Avenue. It was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, one of the most influential American architects of the 1800s, for William Dorsheimer, a Buffalo lawyer who went on to become Lieutenant Governor of New York.

It was Richardson’s very first design for a private home. Fresh from his studies in Paris, he gave it a French look: a slate mansard roof with tall dormers, ochre brick, and crisp bands of gray sandstone running across the front.

The house helped shape the whole city, too. In its rooms, Dorsheimer and Buffalo’s park commissioners met with Frederick Law Olmsted to plan the park system Buffalo is known for today, and the friendship that started here led Richardson to design the landmark Buffalo State Hospital.

1868
Dorsheimer asks his friend Richardson to design a larger home for his family.
1869–71
The house goes up on Delaware Avenue, as the street was becoming the city’s grand boulevard.
1877
Now Lieutenant Governor, Dorsheimer helps put Richardson and Olmsted on the team finishing the State Capitol in Albany.
1980
The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
2023
A full renovation reopens it as offices and event space, the rooms you see in this issue.

The exterior

First impressions start at the curb.

The brick facade and entrance of the building — 01The facade

The Dorsheimer House sign on a dark wall — 02The Dorsheimer House

The lounges

Leather, brick and warm light.

A lounge with leather sofas facing a fireplace — 03The fireplace lounge

A sitting room with a tufted leather sofa and bookshelves — 04The library corner

A lounge with a fireplace, leather chairs and a coffee table — 05The front room

A seating area with a leather sofa below tall windows — 06Under the windows

Leather sofas arranged around a coffee trunk — 07The conversation pit

A lounge seen through a round decorative screen — 08Through the screen

A good photo lets you walk the rooms before you ever open the door.

Cortina Studio

III

Where the work happens

Desks, reception and a room to think.

A reception desk with a leather sofa and pendant lights — 09Reception

A private office with a large desk by the window — 10The office

An office with a desk and a teal tufted sofa — 11The corner office

A front desk with a wall sign and lounge chairs — 12Front desk

The boardroom

One long table, plenty of light.

A boardroom with a live-edge wood table and globe pendant lights — 13The boardroom

A conference table below framed prints and tall windows — 14Conference

A dark conference table with a screen at the far wall — 15The long table

A conference room with pendant lights and a wall screen — 16Meeting room

A splash of red

Color that stops the scroll.

Red peonies on a table beside a red velvet sofa — 17Peonies and velvet

A red velvet sofa beneath a wall screen — 18The red sofa

A reception counter with red flowers and a red sofa — 19Waiting area

The details

The things people remember.

A vintage brass rotary telephone — 20The telephone

Books and a silver elephant bookend on a shelf — 21The shelf

A staircase lit by a chandelier — 23The stairs

A powder room with a vessel sink and red flowers — 24Powder room

A washroom with a wood vanity and copper fixtures — 25Copper and tile

VII

Contact sheet

Your listing, next.

Tell us about the property and we will plan the shoot around the best light.

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