Houses in Framingham & Southborough renovated by Charles M. Baker (1873-1942)

I finally tracked down some biographical information on Charles M. Baker.  The Framingham Historical Society has a transcript of Baker’s obituary published in the Framingham News, Oct. 22, 1942. The obituary states that Baker was one of the best-known architects in eastern Massachusetts. Born and raised in Taunton, Massachusetts,  Charles Baker  moved with his parents to Framingham in 1902, He studied architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston’s pioneering and prestigious architecture school founded in 1868.  Baker was part of a new generation of well-trained, professional Boston architects.  He became prominent in Framingham’s civic and business affairs, and his forceful  personality made him a leading and successful advocate of historic preservation in the Town.  Incidentally Charles Baker worked with  Wallace Nutting a renowned colonial revival enthusiast, antiquarian, photographer, furniture maker and much more.  They both lived in Framingham Centre, the historic heart of the Town.

Charles Baker's House, Prior to Renovation, 1907

Charles Baker bought the house (above) at 121 Edgell Road, Framingham around 1907.  Old maps show the house was built by 1832.

Charles Baker's House, Post Renovation

Charles Baker’s  house (above) after he renovated it in picturesque colonial revival-style.  The architect lived here most of his life and the house  still stands.  **

 

Baker was becoming well-known for his remodelling and restoration of old colonial houses in the 1910s.  Below you can see two historic images of the house at 49 Lynbrook Road, Southborough, before and after Baker’s substantial renovation that doubled the size of the original residence.

49 Lynbrook Road, Prior to Baker's Renovation

The photograph (above) was reproduced in The Colonial House ( pub. 1916) by architect and author Joseph Everett Chandler. Baker renovated this house in 1915, and according to Joseph Chandler had designed a work “in the best of taste” creating “a livable modern Colonial structure. “ Chandler praised Baker’s design as the “essence of Colonial work.” This was high praise because Joseph Everett Chandler was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1889) trained antiquarian and preservation architect. Chandler was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1864 of Mayflower descendants, and was a leading advocate of the Colonial Revival-style, believing that architectural forms embodied the values of their builders, and that a culture could not survive without preserving reminders of its origins and character. Joseph Everett Chandler wrote that the colonial  house aimed “to foster patriotism, Anglo-Saxonism, and acceptable Yankee values.”

The house on Lynbrook Road was written up in Southborough’s Historic Properties Survey (2000).

See below two views of the house as it is today.  (Photos courtesy of Sandra Worcester, member Southborough Historical Commission & Southborough Historical Society)

49 Lynbrook Road 2009

49 Lynbrook Road (2009)

 ** Photographs appear in Joseph Stowe Seabury, New Homes Under Old Roofs (pub. New York, 1916).

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