Many New Yorkers, Palm Beachers and Southamptonites were deeply saddened to hear of the death on Wednesday of Anthony Kane Baker who was killed in a plane crash in the Tennessee River near Athens, Alabama. Mr. Baker had just purchased this new “experimental” amphibious plane, and was out for a training flight with its owner, pilot James Don Langford, who was also killed.
The small two-seat Colyaer S100 Freedom, a light sport plane made in Spain, went into the Tennessee River south of Limestone County shortly before 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning.
Mona de Sayve and Anthony Baker, two weeks ago in New York at the home of Hilary and Wilbur Ross.
By the time rescue workers got there, the plane was upside down in five feet of water about 200 yards from where it hit the water. Both victims were still strapped into their seats and the plane had partially collapsed around them.
Anthony Baker was a very well-liked, quiet sort of man, basically a shy man with passionate interests, including flying. Another of his passions was residential architecture and the architectural history of the development of Long Island as an area of estates. He co-edited with Robert MacKay and Carol Traymor, a major anthology “Long Island Country Houses and Their Architects, 1860 -1940.”
Anthony was a scion of a famous American New York banking family. He was a gentle man and wore his heritage with a modesty that used to be admired as a measure of class and aristocracy. His great-grandfather George F. Baker started First National City Bank in the last quarter of the 19th century, which over the years has morphed into what is known as Citigroup today. Great-grandfather Baker provided much of the initial funding for the Harvard Business School. The Baker Library at Dartmouth is named for him, as is Baker Field at Columbia University.
Anthony Kane Baker married
Carolyn Arbon. Anthony Kane Baker married
Csrol Victoria Oelsner. Anthony Kane Baker was born in 1943 at Manhattan, New York County, New York. He was the son of
George Fisher Baker III. Anthony Kane Baker died on 9. Jul. 2008 at Tenessee River near, Athens, Limestone County, Alabama; in a plane crash.
Funeral set for Anthony Kane Baker of Palm Beach, killed in plane crash
By SHANNON DONNELLY
Daily News Society Editor
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Updated: July 14 at 2:28 p.m.
Funeral services will be Tuesday, July 22, for Anthony Kane Baker, a longtime Palm Beach resident who was killed Wednesday when his lightweight airplane crashed into the Tennessee River.
Mr. Baker was 65.
The funeral will take place at 3 p.m. at St. John's of Lattingtown Episcopal Church at 325 Lattingtown Road in Locust Valley, Long Island, N.Y.
A reception will follow at the Creek Club on Horse Hollow Road, also in Locust Valley.
Born in New York, he was the son of Mrs. Peter Bezencenet of Paris (née Frances Drexel Munn), now of Palm Beach, and the late George F. Baker Jr.
He was the great-grandson of George F. Baker, one of the founders of the bank that would later become Citibank.
He was a graduate of the Brooks School and of Trinity College in Hartford. He also studied at the Pratt Institute in New York.
The Baker family has a long history of philanthropy. George Fisher Baker's 1924 donation to Harvard University, his alma mater, funded the construction of the Harvard Business School campus and the Baker Library, and in 1926, a gift to Dartmouth College endowed the Baker Library there.
Mr. Baker's brother, George F. Baker III, served on the board of dean's advisers at Harvard Business School from 1980-93. He, too, was killed in a small plane crash, near Nantucket, R.I., in December 2005.
"We're absolutely devastated at the news," said Margo dePeyster, Mr. Baker's friend of 20 years. "Nobody can believe it. He was the most devoted father, son, husband, friend — just an incredibly giving and loving man. He'll truly be missed."
DePeyster described Mr. Baker as a "talented and gifted" pilot.
"My husband and I flew with him many, many times and so enjoyed the beauty of it," she said. "He made it a wonderful experience every time."
"He was a wonderful guy," said David Ober, director of Sotheby's Palm Beach office.
"He had this dry sense of humor that a lot of people didn't know about because he was soft-spoken and you had to listen closely. He was quietly irreverent."
Alan Lebow and his wife, Patricia, traveled often with Mr. Baker.
"Anthony was a true Renaissance man with far-reaching interests in poetry, buildings, old cars and sea vessels," Lebow said. "The world has lost a wonderful man who had a true thirst for knowledge and gave so much of himself to those he cared for."
Mr. Baker was a trustee of the George F. Baker Trust, created in 1937 to support education, medicine, social services and civic organizations.
He also was an architectural preservationist of note. He was the author, with Carol Graynor and Robert Mackay, of Long Island Country Houses and Their Architects: 1860-1940, published by W.W. Norton in 1967.
Mr. Baker was married twice, to Caroline Arbon, and to Carol Victoria Oelsner, with whom he has two daughters, Callie and Asia.
In addition to his daughters, and his mother, Mr. Baker is survived by his sister, Pauline Pitt; his half-brother, Kane Baker; and his half-sister, Lavinia Baker.