McCREARY, WOOD & BRADNEY, architects of Buffalo, N.Y. who were considered the masters of the Classical Revival style in Western New York after 1900. Formed in 1905, the partnership consisted of James B. McCreary (1868-1939), and Charles S. Wood (1869-1947) and Joseph J.W. Bradney (1870-1955). Together, they were sought after by leading businessmen of Buffalo, and 1909-12 they designed “Lakeland”, the mansion of John D. Larkin, Lincoln Parkway, Buffalo, N.Y., demolished in 1939 (Buffalo Evening News, 26 May 1939, 36, illus. & detailed descript.).
In Canada, they were active in across the border in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. where they transformed the historic mansion called “Woodlawn”, the 19th C. residence of Henry Livingstone Lansing, John Street East, east of Charlotte Street, into an elaborate summer home for the Buffalo. N.Y. businessman George D. Rand in 1910. The entire complex, renamed "Randwood", still stands today as of 2023. A detailed description of the work on the mansion by McCreary, Wood & Bradley was published in the Daily Standard [St. Catharines], 15 Oct. 1910, page 2.
James Black McCreary was born in Pennsylvania in 1868 and later moved to Buffalo where he joined in a new partnership in 1905 which remained active until c. 1915. He later died in Buffalo on 6 November 1939 (death notice Buffalo Evening News, 7 Nov, 1939, 25). His partners in Buffalo included Charles Sumner Wood, born in Cardington Township, Ohio on 10 April 1869. After McCreary left the partnership in 1915, both Wood & Bradney continued to operate a new office in Buffalo until 1923 when their collaboration ended. Joseph J.W. Bradney was a native of Buffalo, born there on 2 July 1870, and he joined in the partnership with McCreary in 1905. In 1923 Bradney and Wood dissolved their partnership, and Bradney continued to work under his own name until his retirement after 1940. He died in Buffalo on 4 March 1955. A detailed obituary on the career of Bradney can be found in the Buffalo Evening News, 4 March 1955, p. 3.