Lake Geneva Baker House.
If you stick around long enough, chances are you’ll have some good stories to tell.
Such is the case with the 132-year-old Baker House, a Queen Anne, Victorian-style home on Wrigley Drive in Lake Geneva. Now a B&B and restaurant, it has a multi-layered history that includes stints as a private residence, sanitarium, brothel and speakeasy.
“Oh yes, she has quite the history,” said Jonathan Mindham, a personal butler at the B&B for the past six years.
Mindham said Emily and Robert Baker began building the house in 1878. The couple planned the three-story, 17,000square-foot structure as their summer getaway from Robert’s job as an executive in Racine with the J.I. Case tractor company. The elaborate home had a dining room and parlors on the main floor, with a number of bedrooms on the second floor and servants' quarters on the third.
One of the reasons it took seven years to complete the house, which the Bakers dubbed their Redwood Cottage, was because they used sequoia trees for the shingles on the exterior of the home that had to be shipped all the way from California. Craftsmen placed the redwood shingles in seven different patterns on the home, which also has stained-glass windows, hand-planed custom doors, massive mantels on 13 fireplaces and ornate inlaid wood floors installed by S.C. Johnson.
The Bakers built their expensive and elegant getaway in a grove of oak trees on the lakefront next to land owned by Robert’s parents. That property was given to Baker’s father, Charles, as an enticement to become Walworth County’s first district attorney, Mindham said.
Sadly, Robert died of a heart attack at age 43 during the second year of the building effort. But Emily continued on, Mindham said, and when the home was finished, she had “R.H.B,” her late husband's initials, carved into the threshold of the entryway.
She and their five children then used the home, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as a summer retreat until she sold it in 1899.
Mindham said a doctor bought the house from the Baker family and turned it into a kind of health resort for wealthy ladies who suffered from “light nerves” and anxiety — or used it as a place to dry out from too much drinking.
“They took ‘remedies’ here for what ailed them, and it was one of three sanitariums on the lakefront at the time,” Mindham said. “They ate good food, boated, got massages and went for swims in Geneva Lake, which people believed had minerals with natural healing properties. In reality, it was much closer to a spa than a hospital.
It remained a sanitarium until the 1920s when it was purchased by a Chicagoan who reportedly had mob connections, Mindham said. The owner lived in it when he was in town, and also ran it as a speakeasy for his gangster friends, who included the infamous John Dillinger and “Baby Face” Nelson.
“The brothel and speakeasy business was all very hush hush, so we don’t know who actually owned the house,” Mindham said.
During the Great Depression, the building became an all-girls school where young women were sometimes allowed to stay at low cost or for free, he said.
“It was almost like something of a shelter at the time, quite different than its earlier life,” he said.
By the 1940s, the Baker home had morphed into the St. Moritz Hotel, which many Lake Geneva residents remember because it kept that name until the 1980s, Mindham said.
“The owner lived there and it was actually something of a B&B before its time, because he’d rent out rooms in the summer. Next door was an outdoor stage and theater and in back of that was a golf course.
“Lake Geneva was a popular tourist spot and was getting pretty busy during the summers,” he said. “One of the owners was a Mr. Fedorovich, who ran it as a restaurant and B&B.”
In the past few decades, millions have been spent to upgrade the property, he said. Today, it’s owned by Andrew and Bethany Fritz, who bought it seven years ago after first seeing it on a rainy November night. They live on the third floor with their three children.
Today, the Baker House B&B operates a small bar and lounge on the main floor, plus a small-plate, Americanstyle restaurant on the main floor that can seat about 100, Mindham said. It also serves English teas on most Saturdays at 2 p.m., as well offering murder mysteries on many Saturday nights.
The second floor has a large parlor that overlooks the lake, as well as five bedrooms. They range from the lavish Versailles Suite, which comes with its own mirrored, turret sitting room overlooking the lake, to the Bordeaux, which has rich colors of red, brown and gold, plus a brass chandelier and a fireside leather bench.
Butler said the B&B endeavors to make guests feel as if they have stepped back into a “gilded age.”
“We do our best to make it fun,” he said.
More information: Rates at the Baker House start at $275 per night. Breakfast is included. Call (262) 248-4700 or see historichotelsoflakegeneva.com.
Getting there: The Baker House, 327 Wrigley Drive, Lake Geneva, is about 55 miles southwest of Milwaukee via I-43 and Highway 12.