The Friends of J.N. Adam invite you to join the effort to preserve and find a compatible reuse for the historic buildings on the 649-acre campus of the J.N. Adam Memorial Hospital in Perrysburg, New York, and the protection of its 500+ acres of forest, meadows, ponds, streams, and habitat which sit upon Perrysburg's sole source drinking water aquifer.

The property was generously donated to the people by former Buffalo Mayor James Noble Adam.  Renowned American architect John Hopper Coxhead designed the original footprint of the southern plantation style campus ~ its stately main administration building, the dining hall rotunda with its soaring stained-glass dome and the first two patient wings flanking the main building.  The buildings were listed on the New York State Register of Historic Places in 1985 and have been deemed eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (more on this elsewhere on the site).  While Coxhead's work has been championed around the country, with more than a dozen of his designs on the National Register of Historic Places, the State of New York is waging a demolition by neglect campaign and has allowed these irreplaceable structures to fall into a state of disrepair.

The campus and its gentle sloping grounds are in Cattaraugus County, New York, home to deep valleys and steep ridges that inspired its tourism slogan:  "Enchanted Mountains".  At an elevation of 1,322 feet, with sweeping views of Buffalo and Canada to the north, Lake Erie to the west, and vast expanses of farmland and forested hills in all directions, Perrysburg surely must be Cattaraugus County's "Most Enchanted Mountain."  Recreational, educational and preservation potential abounds in the open space adjoining the campus, in keeping with Cattaraugus County's Open Space Preservation Plan.

Please join in the effort by signing our Petition, sending us a Letter with your memories of the once thriving center, sending us a Letter expressing your support for this effort, Emailing us to volunteer for the cause. There is much to be done to ensure these public assets receive the proper stewardship.

Photo (c) Char Szabo-Perricelli, Fall 2009.