Entry No. 42 — the Buffalo file — filed under: former-asylum
The Richardson Hotel
This is H.H. Richardson's 1880 Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, a twin-towered National Historic Landmark on grounds Frederick Law Olmsted laid out, and since March 2023 you can book a room in it. Three of the thirteen buildings were converted — the restoration replaced or repaired 660 windows and left the 15-foot-wide corridors, which no hotel would build on purpose. Ten more buildings sit in suspended ruin next door, untouched since 1974, with curved wards and 16-foot ceilings that the campus nonprofit opens for guided tours in season. Management refuses to market ghosts, on the record, out of respect for former patients — which somehow makes a night here spookier, not less. The Richardson Lounge downstairs does pizzas, burgers, and oysters on Thursday evenings.
→ Three more haunted places & dark-history spots in Buffalo — never the same twice
The story
The cornerstone went down in 1872: H.H. Richardson's complex in Medina red sandstone and brick, twin-towered, Romanesque, with grounds by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. The plan was Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride's — a central administrative tower with five pavilions stepped back on each side, eleven buildings linked by short curved two-story corridors. The east wards received their first patients on November 15, 1880; the west side wasn't finished until 1895. It was built for roughly 600 people and was overcrowded almost at once.
The last patients left in 1974 and the buildings sat. National Register listing came in 1973, National Historic Landmark status on June 24, 1986 — protection without funding. The Richardson Center Corporation stabilized the structures from 2008 to 2012 against a $100 million state commitment, and three of the thirteen buildings were converted: 660 windows repaired or replaced, and the 15-foot-wide corridors left at 15 feet, because a landmark won't let you narrow them and no hotel would build them on purpose. Hotel Henry opened in May 2017 and closed in 2020 under the pandemic. The building returned in March 2023 as The Richardson Hotel, 88 rooms, and since July 1, 2025 the campus nonprofit has run it directly rather than an outside operator.
The other ten buildings still stand on the 42-acre campus in the condition 1974 left them. The nonprofit opens them for guided tours June through September, weekends at 10 am, twenty guests at a time, starting from the Lipsey Architecture Center gallery in the towers building. What the campus does not run is ghost programming, and it says so on the record: tour groups regularly include people who were patients here, or whose relatives were. That refusal is the most unsettling thing about the place.
What it's like
You turn off Forest Avenue into the drive beneath the towers and park free on the grounds of a National Historic Landmark, which sets the register for the evening. Check-in is in the old administration building, where a modern glass-and-metal stair has been dropped in without pretending to be original. The corridors do the real work: fifteen feet wide, carpeted, hung with milk-glass pendants, with original Minton tile underfoot in the curved connectors between wards. Rooms run from compact Cozy queens to Grand Suites with separate living and dining rooms, all behind floor-to-ceiling windows. Breakfast is 7 to 10 daily; the Richardson Lounge opens at 4, oysters on Thursdays. Walk the Olmsted grounds at dusk — and don't ask the front desk which room is the haunted one.
The move: Book a room at the former asylum, hit the Richardson Lounge happy hour (Mon–Thu 4–6pm), then walk the Olmsted grounds at dusk past ten wards of dark, empty windows before retiring behind sandstone walls.
📍 Before you go Hotel is open year-round and books online; phone (716) 493-2610. Tours of the vacant wards are run separately by the Richardson Olmsted Campus nonprofit, roughly May through September — book those ahead. The hotel itself does not do ghost tours and management actively avoids the ghost-hunt angle, so don't show up with an EMF meter. Lounge hours vary; breakfast daily 7–10am.
- 📍 Buffalo
- 💸 $$
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: 444 Forest Ave, Buffalo, NY 14213
Hours: Added 2026-08-25 — confirm current hours before you go.
⚠ Seasonal or scheduled — always check before you go.
Pair it with
- Inspiration Point of WNY — A short walk south down Elmwood from Forest Avenue, and a useful palate cleanser: a small spiritual bookstore that has held its block for decades without a hundred million dollars of state money.
- Buffalo Religious Arts Center — About two miles northwest in Black Rock, the same story in miniature — a monumental institutional building emptied of its original purpose and refilled with what was left behind.
- Assembly House 150 — Fifteen minutes south in Allentown, and the exact opposite method: Dennis Maher's former church is rebuilt improvisationally out of salvage, where the Richardson was restored to landmark standard by committee.
More weird in Buffalo
Good to know
Can I get inside the abandoned wards?
Only on a guided tour run by the Richardson Olmsted Campus nonprofit, June through September, Saturdays and Sundays at 10 am, capped at twenty guests and running 45 minutes to two hours. Tours start at the Lipsey Architecture Center gallery in the towers building and are booked through Explore Buffalo; dates are released monthly, first come first served. Photography is prohibited on the tour for safety reasons. When tours aren't running there's a free self-guided audio tour of the grounds.
Do they do ghost tours?
No, deliberately, and management will tell you why: guests on their tours include former patients and their families, and the campus treats the ghost-hunt framing as disrespectful to them. Book a night here for the architecture and the sheer strangeness of the corridors, not for a paranormal itinerary.
What are parking and accessibility like?
Parking is complimentary. Rooms include ADA king and double configurations with grab bars, visual alarms and visual notification devices, and the Central Suite has a roll-in shower. The 15-foot corridors are, if nothing else, generously wide.
Where do I eat on site?
The Richardson Lounge serves house-made pizzas, seasonal salads, burgers and shared plates, Sunday through Thursday 4–10 pm and Friday and Saturday 4–11 pm, with fresh oysters on Thursday evenings. Breakfast runs daily from 7 to 10 am. The hotel's number is (716) 493-2610.
How much of the old building can you actually see from a room?
More than you'd expect. The conversion kept the 15-foot corridors and the curved two-story connectors with their Minton tile, and guest rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows, some facing the courtyard and some the city. What you can't do is wander into the ten vacant buildings — those are closed except on tour.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Official site · roadtrippers.com · thenotsoinnocentsabroad.com
last checked: 2026-08-25