The Baker House

The Baker House. Los Alamos Historical Walking Tour. Floyd Womelsduff, the chief mechanic at the Ranch School, built this house for himself and his mother in 1925. They lived here throughout the Ranch School era. When the Manhattan Project arrived, the cabin served as emergency housing for essential personnel. Eventually, junior scientists, including Richard Feynman, crowded into the building and slept on bunk beds. In mid-1943, the cottage went to Sir James Chadwick, a scientist with the British Mission and recipient of the 1935 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of the neutron. He lived here with his socialite wife and twin daughters. After the war, many notable scientists and military personnel lived here. Richard Baker, a Manhattan Project veteran, chemist, and division head at the Lab, made this house his home from 1957 until 1995, thus the name Baker House. Los Alamos County purchased the property in 2022 to preserve it as an important part of the Los Alamos historic district., Below: The Baker House, circa 1930s. (photos courtesy Los Alamos Historical Society) , Right: Interior details of the Baker House as seen today., Pick up a copy of the Historical Walking Tour Guide at the Los Alamos History Museum, Bradbury Science Museum, Los Alamos Nature Center, any of the Visitor Centers, or one of the visitor guide kiosks around town. Download one by scanning the QR code, or go to visitlosalamos.org.