by William Krause
28838 Lake Road, c. 1853
The landmark Baker/Becker House on Lake Road was disassembled for preservation in 2007.
The 10th in a series of articles to be published as a walking tour of Lake Road by the Bay Village Historical Society in 2025.
This address on Lake Road was the location of the large, landmark Baker/Becker House which occupied this site from 1853 until 2007 when it was preserved by being disassembled.
Because the lake side of the house was as formal and finished as the front facade and some saw Federal elements in the original design, possibly remodeled into Greek Revival, there were thoughts it was built as early as 1828. However, curiously it does not appear on any maps until 1870.
The land was first owned by Asahel Porter. In 1843 it was sold along with some other nearby land for 21,005 francs to John Baker/Becker, from France. Tax records indicate that a home was constructed on the property in 1850 and the tax value doubled in 1854.
By 1870 it was owned by Charles Hassler, by 1884 the Cahoons, who used it to house their immigrant farm workers. It was occupied by the Ellinwood family in the early 1900s and was the centerpiece of their showplace gardens called “Long Beach Park.” Their daughter was told by a visiting priest that it was constructed in 1853.
Photo by Ginny Peterson
According to Foote genealogy and “Bay Village: A Way of Life,” David Foote was born in Colchester, Connecticut, in 1760 and married Betsy Hamlin of the same town. He served in the Revolutionary War. They had 10 children.
The 13th in a series of articles to be published as a walking tour of Lake Road by the Bay Village Historical Society in 2025.
They lived on the west side of Cleveland when Henry first purchased 50 acres of land on both sides of Lake Road in 1862. The tax value jumped in 1872 and the Wischmeyer Family Papers at Rose Hill Museum indicate that this was the year the family moved to Dover.
Yes, Arthur was a carpenter like his grandfather, as was Arthur’s son Robert and his son Lawrence too. However, Arthur’s brother William was a mail carrier and bus driver and his half-brother Kenneth Krumwiede was a farmer like their father, Louis. According to naturalization records Arthur’s grandfather William immigrated in 1849 not 1847, and according to tax records, 31611 Walker Road was constructed no earlier than 1869 when William Sr. first purchased the 15-acre farm.
By 1930 Arthur is a house builder living in a house he rented on Foote Road. By 1940 he is the proprietor of a house building company with his 22-year-old son Robert working as a carpenter apprentice and 17-year-old son Lawrence still in high school. Arthur had begun buying lots and building homes on Winston Road in the late 1930s. He was poised and ready to begin building on Nantucket Row in 1949 after that subdivision was platted. A 1951 city directory for Lakewood lists Arthur’s son Lawrence working as a carpenter.
The brochure states that Mr. Krumwiede did years of research and took many trips to the East Coast in his hunt for authenticity of line and detail. It is true that, except for their typical suburban setting on a curvilinear street, many of Krumwiede’s original house designs on Nantucket Row are difficult to distinguish from the traditional New England house designs that he duplicated. He is really the Cleveland area’s version of Royal Barry Wills who was a successful architect and builder on the East Coast during the post-WWII housing boom, whose firm is still designing and building high-end traditional style homes.