Tenant Spotlight: Home of the Week
Home of the Week: A new home in an old factory
Tom and Louise Yots live in the Mattress Factory Lofts on Florida Street in Buffalo’s Hamlin Park Historic District. The downsizers have lived there since May and are especially pleased with how the unit is ideal for displaying their artwork.
Tom Yots, who taught chemistry for 31 years at Lewiston-Porter High School, served as the city historian of Niagara Falls and chairman of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission. A preservation consultant, he founded Preservation Studios in 2002 after earning a master’s degree in architecture from the University at Buffalo’s School of Architecture and Planning.
Louise Yots launched the Niagara Greeters Program and was its volunteer coordinator for eight years. She became a volunteer coordinator at Forest Lawn Cemetery. A 30-year member of the Rainbow Singers, she also is a past board president of the former Music School of Niagara.
The couple raised two sons in Niagara Falls and have five grandchildren. They owned Park Place Bed & Breakfast for 17 years in a historic neighborhood in Niagara Falls. It originally was the home of James Marshall, one of the founders of Union Carbide Corp.
Here is how Louise Yots described their new home:
“Recently, my husband and I celebrated 50 years of marriage. It has been a great journey and we discovered it to be enriching and enlightening.
“Throughout our 50 years, we have been collecting art and hanging it in the places where we have lived. As our houses grew from 2,000 to finally 4,200 square feet, so grew our art collection.
“Gradually the inevitable happened and we began to downsize our living spaces. We carefully chose over 130 pieces of our collection and, embracing a new lifestyle, we moved into a loft apartment.
Source: The Buffalo News | | Published | Updated
