Building Description Baker Electric Motor Vehicle Company, Cleveland Ohio
The Baker Motor Vehicle Company Building includes the structure built in 1910 for the company, as well as the one-story wing added in 1931, when the building was used as the A.L. Englander Motor Company. The Baker Motor Vehicle Company Building is a concrete-framed building with a brick exterior. It was designed by Cleveland architect Frank B. Meade and is located at the southeast corner of Euclid Avenue and East 71st Street, in the former "Gold Coast" area of Cleveland's east side. This was once a neighborhood of some of the city's finest houses, home to many wealthy industrialists, businessmen, and community leaders. Following the demise of the Baker and R&L electric automobiles the property continued in use for auto sales and service by A. L. Englander Motor Company, which expanded the building with a one story addition on the east side of the building in 1931.
The Baker building was built as a showroom and maintenance facility serving primarily owners of the Baker electric auto, which went into production in 1898 and was the first of its type produced in Cleveland. The Baker building is somewhat trapezoidal shaped to fit the boundaries of its city lot. It is primarily a one-story structure, with two two-story sections: the section along Euclid Avenue, and another at the building's southwest corner. The exterior walls are primarily brick, with some areas of ornamentation executed in tile and in stucco. The Euclid Avenue elevation is the most ornate and has a symmetrical composition of a central gable-roofed section flanked by square pavilions with pyramidal roofs. On the first floor these pavilions originally had commercial storefronts with recessed central entrances, while the central portion had a central entrance with large showroom display windows to either side. Both storefronts and display windows were removed and replaced at some time in the past by artificial siding and small vertically- proportioned windows. The second floor of the Euclid Avenue elevation retains all of its original windows, which are placed in groups of two, three, and four. The brick walls of this elevation provide the building's primary ornamentation, having been laid in varying patterns such as Flemish Bond, soldier courses, header courses, and a modified basket weave. The upper part of the second floor in the central portion has a stuccoed surface; glazed tile panels provide additional ornamentation on the corner pavilions and in the stuccoed area; in the latter area, the four tiled panels have a shield motif, surmounted by a crown and sporting a back-to-back "BE" that stands for "Baker Electric."
Other elevations are plainer but still have considerable ornamental brickwork. The brick patterns are the same as on the main north elevation, but are used only on the two front pavilions and on the one at the southwest corner. The one-story part of the west elevation has Flemish Bond brickwork, but the other elevations have only common bond. The east elevation is not visible due to its location against adjacent buildings.
Window and door openings on the west and south elevations have mostly been bricked in or covered over, although the openings themselves have not been altered. There were three garage entry doors on the west elevation; two have been infilled and one remains in use; there also are two personnel doors. On the south elevation there originally were no doors; at some time in the past a garage door and a personnel door were cut into the south elevation near the building's southwest corner.
Other than the three pavilions and the north elevation's middle section, the building has a flat roof, and there is a brick chimney about two stories high along the east elevation.
The original interior plan had two store rooms in the corner pavilions along Euclid Avenue, with the auto showroom in the middle section between the pavilions. There was no connection between the store rooms and the showroom. Four small offices and some rest rooms were partitioned along the south side of the showroom. At some time in the past, the showroom and the store rooms were connected and the ceilings lowered, although it is known that at least some original ceiling elements and lighting fixtures survive above the lowered ceiling. The finishes appear to have been painted plaster over structural beams, giving all these spaces a coffered ceiling effect.
The rear portion of the first floor was devoted entirely to automobile maintenance. Original partitions divided the space here into two large service bays, one for electric cars and one for gasoline powered cars with a repair shop for each type of car, as well as a single stock room, along the east side of the building. Monitor windows were located above the garage to admit natural light into the work area. A "garage office" and a wash rack for each service bay was near the west wall, and three turntables, one on the "electric" side and two on the "gasoline" side, facilitated moving the cars around. A paint shop and trimming room occupied spaces along the south wall of the building. None of the fixtures or equipment associated with auto maintenance, including the turntables, has survived.
These working spaces had no ornamentation and were utilitarian in character. These spaces remain largely intact, with some later partitioning.
The second floor of the southwest pavilion was used as office space. Perhaps the most unusual space, however, was the second floor over the showroom and storerooms in the Euclid Avenue section of the building. Here a stairway accessible from East 71st Street led up to an arcaded corridor along the south side of the two-story middle section. Off this corridor were several apartments that consisted of several rooms and what appears to have been common dining, lounge and, cooking facilities. These rooms are said to have been built for use by chauffeurs who worked for some of the wealthy Euclid Avenue families nearby. The Baker auto, since it was electrically-powered, was popular with the women of these families, since they were easy to drive and required no cranking to start, although the matters still apparently were left to chauffeurs. At the end of the day, when the cars' batteries had run down, the chauffeurs drove them to the Baker Vehicle Company Building for recharging; the chauffeurs would stay overnight and then head back the next morning for another day of driving the lady of the house around Cleveland.
Although they have suffered surface damage and loss of paint and wallpaper, the second-floor apartment area, including the original mailbox and doorbell panel, remain in place as an unusual document of the early years of the automobile.
The one-story brick wing was added in 1931 as an expansion of the A.L. Englander Motor Company. It is also constructed with a poured concrete foundation, brick exterior walls and flat built up roof. The addition was designed to complement the existing building. It features two square end sections where entrance doors were located and a central tile-covered pent roof section, which featured the showroom window. The openings have been infilled, but the terracotta surrounds are intact. This wing projects from the plane of the original building and is located closer to the street. It is likely that at the time of its construction, the showroom was the main draw with the original Baker Electric Motor Building housing the service functions.
