The Mansion on Delaware Avenue (Sternberg House)

Charles F. Sternberg, owner of a Buffalo grain elevator on Ohio Street, commissioned the mansion at 414 Delaware Avenue in 1869 as his private residence, at the then-extraordinary cost of $200,000. The architect was George M. Allison, who designed several of the costly Second Empire mansions that lined Delaware Avenue in the 1860s and 1870s during Buffalo's first great wave of post-Civil-War wealth.

In the 1880s the property passed to Samuel Curtis Trubee, who built a large annex on the rear of the house and converted the estate into a 100-room hotel. During Buffalo's turn-of-the-century heyday it was reportedly the most expensive hotel in the city at $3 a night. Local oral tradition and several published Buffalo histories describe the property as having operated as a Depression-era bordello during the 1930s, although primary documentation of that period is limited.

After World War II the building's main floors became the celebrated Victor Hugo Wine Cellar, run by restaurateur Hugo DiGiulio. The wine cellar closed in the 1970s and the mansion subsequently stood vacant for roughly 25 years, deteriorating significantly.

In 2001 the property reopened as the Mansion on Delaware Avenue, a 28-room luxury boutique hotel, following a $3 million restoration. It joined Historic Hotels of America and is considered one of Buffalo's finest small hotels. The Sternberg House is a contributing structure in the Allentown Historic District.