Eastbayri.com

Westport is remembering a ‘wisp of a woman’ whose drive to protect good, old buildings helped transform these towns.

Anne Baker — everybody called her Pete — died on Dec. 12 and friends say there is no understating the impact this dynamo had on the region’s historic character.

Westport’s Geraldine Millham said Pete influenced the course not only of scores of old houses in Westport and across the country, but also generations of young people whom she inspired to pursue historical preservation.

“She’s the reason we moved here — that’s what happened when you met her,” she said

Pete’s knowledge of old buildings was unmatched, Ms. Millham said. Just as important, “She had the ability to make people really appreciate the architectural heritage that still exists here but that is very fragile.”

“She was one of a kind,” said Westport historian Norma Judson. She had an infectious passion for whatever she got herself into.

There is no telling how many historical and architectural treasures are still intact due to her efforts but it is certainly quite a list, Ms. Judson said. In Southern New England alone, she was involved in one way or another in the restoration of more than 300 antique structures.

“Westport was so lucky to have her but she was really known and respected far and wide ... She was a gem in all respects.”

In a letter she wrote nominating Pete for a preservation award (one of many — the Bay State Historical League named her a Local History Hero), Ms. Judson wrote that Anne was a tomboy as a child and early on developed a fascination and knack for using her father’s tools.

“Somewhere along the way, this wisp of a woman decided she wanted to be known as Pete ... It was a natural choice rather than Anne with an ‘e’. After all, she could rip a roof as well as the next guy. It took and it has stuck.

“To read her book Collecting Houses: 17th Century Houses - 20th Century Adventure, one can hear her salty, expressive, down-to-earth dialog. It is ‘Pete’ from page one.”

“There’s nothing more beautiful than an honest repair,” Ms. Baker wrote. She frowned on the way some of Newport was redone — “a giant stage setting.”

Ralph Guild, whose many restoration projects include Gray’s Mill and other Adamsville properties, said he’ll never regret bringing Ms. Baker on to guide the efforts.

“Pete and I began working together when I bought Gray's Grist Mill from John Hart about 35 years ago. The mill itself needed to be stabilized structurally and the dam across the street was in need of preservation as well.  Pete was the ‘go to’ person for anything that required restoration in the in the area. Compromise, was not part of her vocabulary,” he recalled.

“Pete was the most focused person I have known. Her knowledge and commitment to the structural integrity of the Westport-Little Compton area was a part of her, not just a job or a hobby,” Mr. Guild said.” I think the area is unique in its history and beauty because of Pete more than any other person. Her architectural integrity came first and ‘doing right’ was paramount. Virtually all the people who have worked on various Adamsville and Harbor projects I met either directly or indirectly through Pete. They weren't ‘my’ projects, they were ‘ours. Westport will not be the same for me without Pete.”

To listen to a Baker talk, go on one of her guided tours, or best of all to explore an old house with her was a treat, Ms. Millham said.

Just recently “we were up in the attic of a little house at the Head that was for sale ... She was sitting there in the dust, feeling the underside of a joist to see whether it had been planed or not.” That would have told her whether the builder had meant for the beams to be open and visible or whether they were to be hidden.

An architectural historian, “She loved poking around the bones of old places, down in the cellars, digging around the foundation, always looking for clues.”

When an old house came up as a candidate for restoration, “she was our point person. We’d send her in to see if it was worth fighting for.”

Ms. Millham told of the Cory house on Cornell Road that “had the right shape” but, covered by layer after layer of bad siding, apparently little else going for it. Ms. Baker saw beyond the mess of asphalt shingles and encouraged a buyer. “Today that house is one of the most gorgeous in Westport.”

Ms. Baker was driven by endless curiosity, Ms. Millham said.

While she was up in Brigham and Women’s Hospital recently, she was struck by the hospital’s modern design. “She kept asking people , ‘Do you know anything about the architecture,’ about this feature or that? They may have thought she was losing it but that was Pete being curious about everything around her.”

She was best known as an architectural historian but Ms. Baker had other passions and talents.

Pete was devoted to preserving and sharing the work of her second husband Bob Baker — designer, builder and preserver of wooden boats. One of her many unfinished projects was a meticulous catalog of his work. The house with its numerous outbuildings that they and their children shared came to be called ‘Bakerville.’

She loved paddling her kayak down the river, admiring birds and elderly barns along the way.

“She was an amazing gardener — world class,” growing both flowers and vegetables at her Head of Westport house that was once a chicken farm. The old cellar hole she designed for the Boston Flower Show was an award winner.

“And she made the most beautiful pottery you ever saw. She’d get into something and had this intensity, this need to know everything she could about it, Ms. Millham said. “Pete would travel to Mexico or Turkey and next thing you know, techniques and touches she had seen were showing up in her own work.”

A sampling of achievements

Among the many noteworthy projects Anne Baker supervised nearby are:

Mott House, Portsmouth, RI, c. 1680

Vincent House, Martha’s Vineyard, c. 1700

Cole House, Seekonk, c. 1700

Brownell House, Portsmouth, c. 1700

Jerome House, Tiverton, c.1700

Hart House, North Dartmouth, c. 1710

Howland House, South Dartmouth, c. 1740

Tripp-Goddard House, Westport, c. 1720

Capt. Jonathan Stoddard House, Newington, Conn, c. 1740

Macomber-Sylvia Building, New Bedford, c. 1816

Capt. Thomas Paine House, Jamestown, RI, c. 1680

Cory House, Westport, c. 1750

Akin House, South Dartmouth, c. 1762