BUFFALO - The owner of a historic house is ready to reduce it to rubble in a dispute with city preservation officials.

Alfred Coppola said the 2 1/2-story structure built for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition is his only leverage as he battles the Preservation Board over recent decisions, including its denial of an awning for a friend's restaurant.

“I'm not threatening, I'm trying to highlight my concerns with the city of Buffalo,” the former state senator and city councilman said Friday, a day after appearing before the board for a demolition permit.

“It sounds like extortion to me,” board member Russell Pawlak responded. “This is really absurd.”

Coppola sought the demolition permit for the white clapboard structure after the Preservation Board refused for a second time to let the Stillwater Grill elsewhere in the city put up an awning over an entrance. The restaurant is located in a string of row houses in a preservation district.

He accused the board of making it difficult for homeowners and businesses to improve their property and said he also is angered by its inaction on plans to demolish 120 houses in his boyhood neighborhood to make way for a new plaza for the international Peace Bridge.

“Nobody is paying attention to that project,” Coppola said. “Some of them are historic homes.”

Coppola said he bought the Pan-Am structure 25 years ago to save it from the wrecking ball and has taken pride in its upkeep. It was part of the 1901 fair's Indian Stockade and is one of only two structures from the exposition remaining in its original location.

“You put your heart and soul into something, it's worth millions to you,” he said.

But the denial of the restaurant awning was the final straw, he said, and he is ready to go to court for permission to raze it. The Preservation Board rejected his demolition permit Thursday.

“The bottom line is you need to have input and I'm a plain, ordinary citizen today,” Coppola said. “If I didn't have the little white house what other avenue would I have?”

Coppola ran a restaurant for 16 years until running for the Common Council in 1982 and said he knows how hard it is to succeed.

“This little canopy for this (restaurant) is needed because we have inclement weather in the winter and that's probably one of the hardest entrances because you have to climb cement steps,” he said.

The board determined the awning did not adhere to guidelines on preserving architectural integrity in the historic district.