A one-room schoolhouse, woodworking shop and eight other Amherst buildings that date as far back as the 1800s are on the move – again.
Decades after they were carefully hauled to the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village site in northeast Amherst, the historic structures are now part of the museum’s planned move to the former Westwood Country Club along Sheridan Drive.
The $8.5 million project includes the cost to shift the buildings – along with some kid-friendly farm animals – about 9 miles southwest to the Amherst Central Park site and to construct a replacement museum there.
Officials say this will free up space at the Heritage Village property for town archives and records storage. They also say the move to the centralized location will boost attendance and make the Heritage Village a destination.
“In our current location, there’s really not the breadth of amenities that we would want,” said Carrie Stiver, the museum’s executive director. “We currently don’t have any food service that we can offer to our visitors. We’re a little bit more out of the way. This is going to give us an opportunity to change that.”
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Amherst Supervisor Brian J. Kulpa discusses the latest plans for the future Amherst Central Park as Carrie Stiver, executive director of the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village looks on during a meeting at the Amherst Municipal Building last year.
The move is meant to help create a cultural hub within the future park.
Town leaders envision a new MusicalFare Theatre, community center, inclusive playground and ample room for hiking, biking, skating and other leisure activities, though much of the property would be left in a natural state.
Construction could begin next year, with venues starting to open to the public in 2025.
Not everyone is satisfied. Some are worried about whether the buildings will survive the move. And a group of residents has complained bitterly that town officials developed the project with little transparency and with no regard for the cost to taxpayers.
Amherst Supervisor Brian J. Kulpa defended the planning process and argued that the park, with features that better tell Amherst’s history, will serve generations of residents.
“These things are important assets here and we, I think, have a timeless story to tell,” Kulpa said. “We just have to do a better job of that.”
Carrie Stiver, executive director of the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village, discusses the planned move of the museum to the former Westwood Country Club site in this 2023 video.
Benefits of move aired
Plans show the Heritage Village’s 10 historical buildings and two replicas surrounding its gazebo on a 22½-acre plot in Amherst Central Park’s southwest corner.
The village’s museum and collection of more than 60,000 artifacts, many detailing Amherst’s agricultural history, will move into a new building expected to open by spring 2026.
Fields for its rams and farm animals line Frankhauser Road. A small section at the top of the plot is labeled “future BNHV expansion.”
The move allows the town to shift its growing archive center from temporary buildings at an old Nike missile base to the current Heritage Village museum, where Kulpa said town records will be better preserved.
A new executive director has been tapped to help turn around the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village, formerly known as the Amherst Museum. Herbert Schmidt, who has more than 12 years experience working with nonprofits, will head an organization that is under increasing pressure by the Town of Amherst to become less dependent on public tax dollars. Schmidt, of Alden,
The rest of the former BNHV site would be combined with the former Oakwood Golf Course and used for cricket fields and pickleball courts.
Building the new museum will cost about $6 million. Moving and refurbishing 13 buildings – many from the 19th century – is estimated to cost another $2.5 million.
Kulpa said he at first thought the idea was “crazy.” But then he considered what he saw as the benefits: consolidating some cultural attractions, cutting down on programming costs and bringing more visitors to BNHV.
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An exterior view of the building that originally served as the one-room schoolhouse for Williamsville.
The town owns the Heritage Village property and invests about $370,000 annually into operating costs, and $100,000 per year for capital needs.
“It’s resolving a number of issues: taking care of a formal place for an archive center, taking care of the museum’s future with a new facility and then taking care of these buildings to bring everything up to speed – in one shot,” Kulpa said. “So, when we put all those things together, that idea didn’t seem so ludicrous anymore.”
Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village – formerly known as the Amherst Museum – appears to be making the turnaround hoped for by the Town of Amherst, which is looking to wean the museum off a nearly half-million dollar public subsidy. Admission from last year to this year has gone up 25 percent. Income from fundraising is up 50 percent. And
This won’t be the first time BNHV’s buildings have been moved.
Three buildings were shifted to the Amherst Museum’s original location before being moved again to the Heritage Village’s current site in the early 1970s. The rest were moved between 1975 and the late 1990s.
BNHV has retained documents, photos and videos from those moving operations, said Stiver, the executive director.
“It’s not an uncommon procedure, so there are people who know how to do it,” Stiver said. “We’ve done it before, and we can definitely do it safely again.”
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The one-room schoolhouse at the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village is among the buildings being relocated in Amherst.
Stiver said the move will allow staff to closely examine the condition of the structures. She also said she looks forward to expanding the museum’s programming, including wintertime events such as holiday lights that aren’t practical at the existing site.
But the plan to move BNHV, first reported by the Amherst Bee, has its skeptics.
Dave Sherman, a former Amherst town historian and president of BNHV when it was known as the Amherst Museum, said “the devil is always in the details.”
He worries that smoke from the blacksmith shop or noise from the farm animals will disturb nearby residents; that one of the more “fragile” buildings breaks in transit or gets left behind to cut costs; or that the former BNHV site is used “to build condos or a restaurant” instead of “permanent open space land,” as laid out in town documents from 1961.
“I fear that the powers that be in this town are rubbing their hands with glee, just looking ahead and saying, ‘We can get our hands on this, and we can sell it,’” Sherman said.
It's the latest shift in the plans for reusing the massive, 171-acre site in the heart of Amherst, a project that has sparked fierce debate for a decade.
2025 park opening eyed
The addition of the Heritage Village brings the town closer to filling out the former golf course property.
Amherst paid nearly $7.8 million to Mensch Capital Partners, the development group that had planned to build residential and commercial space on the property.
Some neighbors objected to the scale of the Mensch proposal. The town and the developers negotiated for years, going through several variations of plans, before reaching the purchase deal.
The latest version of the project, posted on the town website, basically divides the property into three sections.
The southernmost third, closest to Sheridan Drive, hosts the future Heritage Village, new MusicalFare space, inclusive playground, a clubhouse converted to a community center, winter market area, ice skating ribbon, splash pad and open-air amphitheater.
The middle section would have on- and off-road trails, two other playgrounds, a greenhouse and future community garden, outdoor exercise equipment, a central meadow, natural recreational areas and a future marsh feature.
The northernmost section, closest to Maple Road, would see existing wetlands, ponds and hardwood swamps left in place.
“Here, it’s meant to be fully immersive, OK?” Kulpa said. “Let’s just let wild be wild.”
Planning will continue through 2023, Kulpa said, and initial construction for Amherst Central Park should begin in 2024.
The town wants to coordinate this work so that several prime attractions – such as MusicalFare, the playgrounds and ice ribbon – all open in fall 2025.
“Everything kind of unfolds over the course of ’25 and ’26,” he said.
Plans to redevelop the former golf course have upset a core group of critics, who fear extra traffic and noise.
“Every time you turn around, he’s adding something to what’s supposed to be a passive park,” said neighbor Judy Ferraro, a Kulpa critic who was part of the prior “Keep Westwood Green” movement.
Further, she insists, Kulpa has pushed through the park plans without seeking enough public input and without revealing their true cost.
“This is his agenda. It is not the people’s agenda. And we want to know the bottom-line expense for the taxpayers,” Ferraro said.
Kulpa, for his part, said the park will offer residents many centrally located amenities that the town has lacked, such as a true town square.
Pointing to the future site of the Heritage Village, Kulpa said, “This thing sets up to be like a Norman Rockwell painting.”