For the first eight months of his life, Kyle Baker ’13 lived in Stone Hall. Now, in his third year at Denison, he has returned to those original digs. One big difference? He has a new set of roommates.
In 1989, Gary and Suzanne Baker moved to Granville for the fall semester at Denison, where Gary had been hired as a German professor. At the time, Stone Hall housed Denison faculty and their families, so the Bakers moved into apartment 105. Two years later, Kyle was born. He learned to walk in the apartment, but, says Suzanne, he was hesitant to start because of the hardwood floors.
Suzanne, now an education professor at Denison, also remembers the sense of community her young family felt in Stone Hall. In the building, which was built in 1905 and remodeled into 14 apartments in 1961, there were two other faculty children born within a year of Kyle: Cyrus Smith, son of Sandra Mathern-Smith, dance professor, and Gabriela Jaramillo, daughter of the late Eduardo Jaramillo, a Spanish professor. Suzanne recalls the three children (pictured above) playing in the main entryway together near the mailboxes.
Of the three families, the Bakers moved out first, leaving for a house about a mile away in April 1992. The family still returned, though, often spending the Fourth of July and Halloween in downtown Granville with Kyle’s “Stone Hall friends”—all of whom remain pals today. Why did Kyle decide to return to his roots? For one, he’s a music major, so living on South Quad, where music classes are held, makes sense. Two, well, he likes his history with the building. And the floors don’t seem to bother him much anymore.