Hotel Baker

It is with great sadness that I must report that the website for the fabulous Hotel Baker in Saint Charles, IL is down and the domain name up for sale. As I understand it, the hotel was owned by the Andersen Accounting firm that died or nearly has as a result of accounting scandals. It is absolutely a shame that this beautiful hotel, completely rennovated in 1997, should languish over that situation.

I will try to find out any information I can from the City of Saint Charles, IL as to who currently owns the hotel and what I can do to help get it back up and running. I plan to offer the owner free space on my domain at Whizzyrds Dot Com if I can locate the entity that owns the hotel.

The Baker is a member of the National Historic Trust's Historic Hotels Association , or was.

The hotel also has it's own ghost stories, one of which involves someone thought to be a victim of Al Capone's thugs.

The Baker was also famous for live performances in the Rainbow Room and a radio show entitled "Live, From The Rainbow Room" featuring Lawrence Welk at one point. An excerpt from the Saint Charles History and Tourism page:

"A main attraction for the Baker was the famous "Rainbow Room," a two-story oval ballroom surrounded by a balcony. It earned its name from the dance floor which had 2,620 red, green, yellow, and blue lights beneath 300 glass blocks. At that time. the dance floor was one of only three lighted glass floors in the world. The lights could synchronize with the beat of the music, or produce pictures such as a heart, flag, star, or Christmas tree.

The Rainbow Room of the Baker drew top-notch entertainers. Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, Guy Lombardo, Lawrence Welk, and Eddie Duchin were among the talents to have graced the floor and entertained huge crowds every night. The music from the Baker was piped across the river into the Municipal Building during the 1940s."

As you can see, especially if you visited the St. Charles History page above, the Baker was truly something special. They also hosted a fabulous Sunday Brunch in the Rainbow Room that I had the priveledgge of attending two years ago with my wife, it was wonderful!

I will post any updates to the Save Hotel Baker weBlog as they come to my attention.

Plight Of The Rainbow:

The place where Satchmo blew his horn,
Where Welk broadcast live on radios that glow,
The place of soft nights and great beauty,
Ultra soft pink-white walls,
Oval room,
With a beautiful turquoise glass domed ceiling,
Wooden pillars and second floor promenade,
Over looking a dance floor of glass blocks,
Which house lights that softly change color,
In tempo to the music,
The Rainbow Room at Hotel Baker,
That limestone historic beauty on the river,
There in sweet old Saint Charles,
Closed up and begging for a takeover,
Owned and operated by the infamous,
Evil devils held her leash,
Andersen claims another victim,
And I want to just scream,
The old grace just remodeled and shuttered,
You should see it there,
You really really should,
The beautiful grounds,
Where elegant beauties in gowns,
Were married under starlight,
There in the little stone gazebo over the dam,
Colonel Baker's penthouse,
And the stone boathouse standing empty,
Awaiting new owners or ghosts,
It's a foul shame that dearly calls,
To be rectified.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 05/18/2002

By: Daniel A. Stafford

Author's Comments

This place is the coolest, most elegant
old hotel I've ever seen. It's kind of small, maybe
a hundred rooms, the dance hall is just as described,
and Lawrence Welk & Louis Armstrong, among others,
id broadcast live radios shows from there. There was a
radio show years ago, "Live From The Rainbow Room,"
that featured many of the premier musicians of the era.
The place should be an historic landmark. Closed because
the accounting firm that did the Enron was a major source
of business for it. Awful!!!!!!!!!!

Update 12/15/2002
So far, my best guestimate is that I got the issue completely confused back when I wrote the poem earlier this year. It looks like the Arthur Andersen training college at old Saint Dominick's College in St. Charles was a major source of guests and revenue for the Hotel Baker. The collapse of Andersen probably closed the college (not determined yet) and cut off a major source of high profile corporate guests for the Baker. At this time, to the best of my knowledge, this is more likely the reality of the situation. The Baker was NOT owned directly by Andersen. However, it is highly likely the issues with Andersen had a serious deleterious effect on the hotel's business as it was being operated.