Baker Memorial Chapel

Baker Chapel, decorated for Christmas 1930

The pipes of Baker Chapel's Moller Opus 4142 tubular-pneumatic pipe organ, 1924, now in storage at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, New York

Baker Memorial Chapel

Baker Memorial Chapel, interior

View from near Baker Chapel of Mount Baker and McKenzie Mountain

The chapel, Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium, c. 1902, 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

Baker Chapel, with Childs Infirmary at left.
Courtesy of Noreen Oslander

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.

The Chapel was dedicated to Lewis Graham Lake 10/19/1864 - 5/16/1883 by his mother Frances Emma Baker.

Source:

• National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

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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."

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Essex County Republican., January 1, 1915

A Christmas service of music was presented Christmas Eve in the Baker Memorial Chapel at Trudeau.

Courtesy of Noreen Oslander

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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.

In Memory of Frances Lake Thacher Frances Emma Baker and John Seymour Thacher

In memory of George Graham Lake
September 19, 1821 - December 12, 1884

Footnotes

1. The organ, which has an unusual tubular-pneumatic action, is now in the collection of the Adirondack Museum