Baker Memorial Chapel
[Museum]| in Blue Mountain Lake, New York ]]
Mount Baker| and McKenzie Mountain| ]]
William Henry Jackson| ]] Trudeau Sanatorium Historic District, Reference Number 38
Year built: 1896
Architects: J. Lawrence Aspinwall and William L. Coulter for Renwick, Aspinwall and Owen
Baker Memorial Chapel is a non-denominational church was designed to accommodate the slope of the hill and is defined by its one-story, gabled nave, prominent square corner tower and side entrances. A stone alcove was added on the north side of the building in 1924 to house an organ donated by the patients. 1
Childs Infirmary| at left.
|Courtesy of Noreen Oslander]]
The building is distinguished by its construction materials: large-scale, rough-cut stones complemented by shingled surfaces in the gables. The building was re-roofed in the 1980s with cedar shingles. The interior, which seats seventy-five, is entirely finished in natural wood, lit by 1897 stained-glass windows in the nave and a large, tripartite, 1924 window in the south [sic: east] facade. The Baker Chapel is in need of substantial restoration work due to the failure of its electrical system and the floor in the organ alcove; however, it otherwise retains integrity.
It was built by master stone mason Martin Miner Watson.
Source:
• [Register of Historic Places Registration Form]
'An Autobiography, pp. 280-281, Edward Livingston Trudeau
In 1896 "Mr. Frederick [sic: Frederic] Baker, who was staying for a short time at the Ampersand Hotel, consulted me professionally. He was a pleasant gentleman and we got along admirably together, I showed him the Sanitarium and, I imagine, told him a good deal about it. That evening as I was leaving his room after a call he said to me: 'Mrs. Baker is coming up tomorrow; why don't you take her up to the Sanitarium; I think it might interest her.'
"This was a happy suggestion. I took Mrs. Baker there, and when she asked me what I wanted I told her a little chapel of some sort for the patients to worship in. The architects, Mr. Coulter and Mr. Aspinwall, did the rest by drawing such an attractive plan of a a little rough stone church that Mrs. Baker at once decided this was just the kind of gift she would like to make as a memorial to her son. I heard afterwards that on the following Christmas, in talking over her investments with Mr. Baker, she said she thought the best investment she had made during the year was the little chapel at the Sanitarium; and it has continued to be a good investment ever
]]since."
Essex County Republican., January 1, 1915
A Christmas service of music was presented Christmas Eve in the Baker Memorial Chapel at Trudeau.
Plattsburgh Sentinel, November 12, 1920
Next Monday there will be memorial services, marking the fifth anniversary of the death of Dr. E. L. Trudeau, at the Baker Memorial chapel at Trudeau Sanatorium, Saranac Lake.
Frances Lake Thacher|, Frances Emma Baker| and John Seymour Thacher]]
George Graham Lake
|September 19, 1821 - December 12, 1884]]
Footnotes
1. The organ, which has an unusual [action], is now in the collection of the [Museum]