KC St.Charles-A-Historical-View

St. Charles

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A Historical View

Kane County Chronicle / KCChronicle.com • Saturday, August 25, 2012

| St. Charles Heritage Center

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The Historic Hotel Baker: The Crowned Jewel of the Fox

By Jessie Shattuck

St. Charles Heritage Center Intern

One of St. Charles greatest philanthropists, Colonel Edward J. Baker spared no expense when it came to building the Hotel Baker.

Originally planning to spend only $600,000 on the hotel’s construction, Baker ended up spending around $1,000,000, which is equivalent to over thirteen million dollars today, in order to include the latest conveniences and to perfect every aesthetic detail. Popularly known as the “Gem of the Valley” and “Beauty Spot of the Fox River Valley”, Hotel Baker had everything to do with elegance. It was a place for the rich to play, and an opportunity for the city of St. Charles to prosper. The first class operation held black-tie affairs with men and women showing up in the latest fashions in their Pierce Arrows, Hudson Teriplanes and Packards.

The Hotel Baker was at first the site of the Old Haines Mill. Built in 1837, it burnt down in 1919 and the lot remained empty for seven years. Accumulating trash for those seven years and with talk going around that a new factory was going to take its place, Edward J. Baker bought the property in 1926 deciding that the focal point of St. Charles should be much grandeur. With the money he inherited through his older sister and her husband John Warne “Bet-A-Million” Gates, the founder of the Texaco Oil Company, Edward J. Baker broke ground in September that very same year and began construction of the famed Hotel Baker. With the prosperity of St. Charles in mind, Baker desired to only hire local contractors and suppliers.

Though Colonel Edward J. Baker (“Colonel” due to his many successes in horse- racing) first planned for the hotel to be finished in 1927, he opened the doors of Hotel Baker to the public on June 21st, 1928 with a grand opening dinner celebration in the Rainbow Ballroom, where 301 guests attended. The two-story ballroom and dining room had a dance floor lit-up with 2,620 yellow, red, green, and blue lights under 300 glass blocks, and was wired for more than 63,000 watts of electricity. The lights within the floor and the damn

outside on the Fox River were synchronized with the music from the Spanish Renaissance-style pipe organ, creating a festive ambiance with a bright kaleidoscope of color. At the time there were only three lighted floors of its kind in the entire world, and the $30,000 pipe organ (equivalent worth of $400,000 today) was 100% unique, being designed solely for the Hotel Baker.

Next to the Rainbow Ballroom was the Trophy room, now known as the Waterfront Room. Acting as a lounge for the hotel guests, the walls were painted in order for the room to replicate a courtyard of a Spanish mansion with Moorish influence, complete with decorated eaves, balconies, canopies, and terra cotta tiles. The ceiling was painted and lit to replicate moving clouds in the open sky. Two walls of the room have big windows overlooking the formal rose gardens and the Fox River.

When the hotel opened on June 2nd, 1928, accommodations started at a whopping $2.50 a night. By 1947 a room was up to six dollars a night. In the thirties and forties Hotel Baker acquired the reputation of being the “Honeymoon Hotel” because of its proximity to the river, Pottawatomie Park and the Arcada Theatre. During the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago, the Hotel Baker was advertised as one of the best places in the area to stay. The hotel and the Arcada Theater, built by the Norris’ who also inherited John Gate’s fortune, sparked a business and economic boom in St. Charles and it has been a busy and bustling town ever since.

Many famous guests have stayed at the hotel through out its history, including John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Richard Daley, Louis Armstrong, and many more. While some guests arrived by chauffeur, others flew in with the Central Airway Corporation, which had three, 5-passenger Stinson Detroiter planes. It was a fifteen minute trip between an airstrip west of town and the Chicago Flying Field.

Roundtrips cost $30 and Mr. Baker himself would greet them when they arrived at the airstrip.

For electricity, Hotel Baker was one of the few hotels in the world to generate its own power. It did so by channeling the Fox River into an underground raceway below the hotel. The river poured through sluice gates into alcoves where it turned two 50 kilowatt generator turbine blades, and then circled back out from below the hotel through a tunnel under Main Street and rejoined the river below the bridge. The generators have since been donated to a museum because they could not provide enough electricity for modern conveniences.

After World War II, the elegance of the Hotel Baker unfortunately began to deteriorate. Fashionable spiked heels began to scratch the glass blocks in the rainbow room, and after the flood of 1954 the lights in the floor became permanently damaged. In addition, the hotel lost its appeal when people began to travel farther by plane and car. Edward Baker died in 1959 at the age of 90, and his property was bequeathed to his niece Mrs. Dellora A. Norris. In 1968, after not being able to sell the hotel within her time restraints, she donated it to the LSSI, or Lutheran Social Services of Illinois. The Hotel Baker retained its name, but was converted into a retirement home for men and women of an ambulatory age who could no longer handle a home or apartment on their own. During the ownership of LSSI, the hotel’s parking garage was razed and replaced by the Carroll Towers, the Rainbow Room floor was restored almost to its former glory, and

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St. Charles Heritage Center | Kane County Chronicle / KCChronicle.com

Hotel Baker as a whole was listed as a local landmark by the St. Charles Historical Museum for its historic and architectural significance. In addition, the state of Illinois and the United States Department of Interior, National Park Service, placed the hotel on its National Register of Historic Places.

In 1996 the Hotel Baker was purchased by two local business men, Craig A. Frank and Neil D. Johnson, who sought to reopen it as a hotel to the public again, and to restore it to its original European elegance while renovating it with all the comforts and conveniences of today. The city of St. Charles created its first tax increment finance district to help fund the rehabilitation of Hotel Baker, and nine million dollars was used in the restoration. Also in 1996, Craig Frank and his mother Ruby received the Preservation Partners Award for their renovations of the Arcada Theatre and their renovation plans for the Hotel Baker.

Unfortunately in 2001 the new owners of the Hotel Baker missed a mortgage payment, partly to do with the events of September 11th, and the hotel was foreclosed and auctioned off. It was sold in a sealed-bid auction to Joe Salas, a computer consultant and real estate investor, with his partners Sonny Salas and Dan Burns. Today the Hotel Baker is just as beautiful and magnificent as it was in its heyday under the ownership of Edward Baker. Though it was been updated with modern conveniences, much of the hotel has been kept in its original state. Walking through the ornamental doorway through the Spanish-Moroccan inspired foyer, into the grandiose lobby, it’s like walking back in time to the 1920s when it was first built. It is a transcendent experience and I think everyone should experiThe interior of the Hotel Baker Rainbow Ballroom. ence at least one night in this unique and beautiful historical landmark.

Kane County Chronicle / KCChronicle.com • Saturday, August 25, 2012

| St. Charles Heritage Center

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Leaving a Legacy

By Tom Witom Contributor

John W. Gates John W. Gates, Edward Baker and Lester Norris.

Contributions made by these three civic-minded pioneers stand tall in influencing St. Charles as we know it today.

“They all exhibited an entrepreneurial spirit, at one time or another each starting his own business – and doing quite well,” said Natalie Gacek, museum director of the St. Charles Heritage Center. “All three left a fine legacy.”

Gates (1855-1911) grew up in Turner Junction (now West Chicago), attended Northwestern College in Naperville and married Dellora Baker, the daughter of Edward H. Baker, of St. Charles.

Putting a knack for salesmanship to work, Gates began amassing his fortune by successfully marketing barbed wire, a new invention, to initially skeptical Texas cattle ranchers. He started Southern Wire Co. of St. Louis and later merged it with a similar enterprise that ultimately was sold in 1901 and became U.S. Steel.

The steel magnate became an oil baron when he benefitted from a lucrative investment in Spindletop oil on his property in Beaumont, Tex., an oil company that was a forerunner to Texaco.

A colorful figure, Gates was an inveterate gambler who picked up the nickname of “Bet-a-Million.” One account has him bet (and lose handsomely) on which of two raindrops would slide down on a window pane the fastest.

Edward Baker (1868-1959) had a successful career as a farmer, hardware merchant and public figure. In addition, the governor of Kentucky anointed him with the honorary title of “Colonel” for his contributions to horse racing. Baker’s most famous horse Greyhound, acquired as a yearling in 1933, won 17 international records.

By 1918, John and Dellora Gates and their son Charles had all died, leaving an estate valued at $38 million to John’s brother-in-law, Col. Baker, and his wife’s namesake niece, Dellora Angell, who was a teen at the time. Dellora later married Lester Norris, a St. Charles native who worked as a commercial artist and cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune.

Lester and Dellora founded St. Charles Charities, later renamed the Norris Foundation, which provides grants to local not-for-profit groups. Several of their descendants still call the St. Charles area home.

Gacek said the Gates-Baker-Norris benevolence has left an indelible imprint on the St. Charles landscape.

The Baker Community Center, 101 S. Second St., was dedicated to the memory of the Bakers’ son, Henry Rockwell Baker, and all World War I veterans. Its basement initially held a swimming pool, then bowling alleys; after they were removed, the facility became home to its current occupant, the St. Charles Underground, a teen center.

Also part of the legacy were the stately Hotel Baker, 100 W. Main St.; the Municipal Building, a Registered Historic Place at 2 E. Main St. and the Illinois Street bridge.

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Lester Norris

Dellora (Angell) Norris

• Saturday, August 25, 2012

In St. Charles the Norrises helped to finance the country club and to build Delnor Hospital on Route 25 in 1940; today that site is Delnor Glen, a complex with senior town homes and a senior care facility.

The Norris’ family fortune, in conjunction with Norris’ artistic abilities, led to construction in 1926 of the unique Arcada Theatre at 105 E. Main St. – a venue still used for live theater performances. Norris money also funded the Boy Scout Building, 415 N. 2nd St. and provided property for St. Charles East High School and donated land and money for the Norris Cultural Arts Center, 1050 Dunham Rd. During the 1950s, Baker funded the building of the Baker Memorial United Methodist Church, 307 Cedar Ave., which was dedicated to his parents’ memory.

“All of these facilities are still standing and in use today,” said Gacek, adding that the generosity of the Baker and Norris families also provided a home for the Heritage Center in the Municipal Building from 1940 to 2000.

History buffs can discover more about St. Charles’ past by visiting the Heritage Center website at www. stcmuseum.org. Gacek also recommends Ruth Seen Pearson’s 1976 book, Reflections of St. Charles: A History of St. Charles, Illinois, 18331976 for further study.

St. Charles Heritage Center | Kane County Chronicle / KCChronicle.com

Edward J. Baker

Kane County Chronicle / KCChronicle.com • Saturday, August 25, 2012

| St. Charles Heritage Center

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86 Years of Entertainment A History of the Arcada Theatre

By Natalie Cincotta

St. Charles Heritage Center Intern It’s September 6th, 1926, and hundreds of people from Northern Illinois flock to the Arcada Theatre in St Charles for its long awaited debut. Inside the Theatre, visitors are immersed in an atmosphere of the luxurious and the exotic while they await an evening of film and vaudeville performances. 86 year later, the Arcada Theatre still has that 1920s charm, and remains a stunning piece of St Charles history.

The site of the old Burchell Hotel, on 1st avenue and Main Street, remained a vacant lot until it was purchased by wealthy philanthropists in the mid-1920s. These philanthropists were Lester and Dellora Norris, St. Charles natives who initiated several local building projects. With Chicagoan architect Elmer F. Behrns, Lester began designing a “homelike theatre” that would “[serve] the entertainment needs of St. Charles and vicinity.” In addition to the theatre itself, the building would also house businesses and the Red Parrot Tea Room on the second floor, a place to socialize after shows.

After investing $500,000 and three years of construction, the Arcada Theatre opened to a sold out crowd on September 6th, 1926.

Arcada is the Spanish word for Arcade, an appropriate name for a theatre ornately designed in the Spanish colonial style. The building’s tan colored façade, complete with terracotta roof tiles and balconies, give visitors an initial taste of what is inside. The crowd was welcomed by stone benches, lanterns, palm trees, and even a waterfall in a grotto concealed by iron wrought gates imported from Venice, Italy. The stage was set like a Spanish street, complimented by ornate iron balconies on the walls and an open roof leading to a painted blue sky. Although the grotto was removed, the Spanish colonial style has been maintained in the historic building.

On opening night, guests were entertained by vaudeville acts, including the famous radio stars Fibber McGee & Molly. Vaudeville was a popular form of entertainment at the time, involving various acts of different styles, from comedy to dance. A silent film, The Last Frontier, was also shown and accompanied by organist Walter Stone. The Marr & Colton organ he played was one of the best of its time, bought by Lester Norris from Warsaw, New York, for over $25,000. It was replaced in 1928 by an organ built by the Geneva Organ Company, which was able to rise from the stage. The second organ was restored in 1968 and remains in the theatre today.

The Arcada went through numerous changes and challenges as

entertainment changed throughout the 20th century. Vaudeville dwindled with the growing popularity of Hollywood and films with sound in the 1920s and 1930s. The age of television also impacted the popularity of live shows – so much so that the theatre almost completely shut down in the 2000s.

The Arcada Theatre was sure to close, until the tables turned in 2005. Finding the perfect “formula of geography, history, and community support” in Arcada, Ron Onesti (president, Onesti Entertainment) became the new owner. The theatre was rejuvenated with technological upgrades, restoration, and nationally and internationally known entertainers. Mickey Rooney, Jerry Lewis, and Eddie Money are among famed performers who have graced the Arcada stage. Despite facing some obstacles, Onesti has dedicated himself to maintaining the same “homestyle feel” Lester Norris aimed to create in 1926. 86 years later, the Arcada still has the same elegance and charm it did on opening night in 1926.

Connecting You with Local History - St. Charles Public Library www.stcharleslibrary.org/history/historicalbuildings.htm

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(Above) The foyer of the Arcada Theater.

(Previous page, left) The original Mar & Colton organ.

(Previous page, right) Looking from the stage to the seating area before opening night in 1926.

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Kane County Chronicle / KCChronicle.com • Saturday, August 25, 2012

| St. Charles Heritage Center

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