Baird & Warner history

He convinced a childhood friend, Lyman Baird, to leave his job in the office of the treasurer at Yale to join him in 1857.

Three years later, in January 1860, Baird became a copartner in what became known as L.D. Olmsted & Company.

1878 Lyman Baird’s son, Wyllys joins the company first as office boy, then bookkeeper, clerk and salesman before becoming a junior partner.

He started out as an office boy and made partner in 1887.

Lyman Baird became consulting partner, as the younger members of the firm reorganized as Baird & Warner in 1893.

1897 Chicagoland’s population continues to grow, which led to construction of more apartments to provide affordable housing.

In 1903 Wyllys Baird was named president.

By this time, a third generation of the Baird family had joined the company, Warner Green Baird, who took over the building management department in 1911.

A second branch office, in Rogers Park, was opened in 1917.

Following a recession in 1919 after World War I, the economy boomed across the country, and Baird & Warner prospered as well.

A fourth branch office opened in Evanston in 1921.

It includes an office directory dated March 24, 1922, payroll records and loan, insurance and rent records for the main office and five branch offices-Michigan Ave, Wilson Ave, Rogers Park, Evanston, and Michigan-Erie.

Volume 7 is an account book for January 26-December 31, 1932.

Three more branch offices were opened in 1933 to manage these properties around the city.

1934 Until this time, restricted loan terms meant only the very wealthy could afford their own home.

In 1946, John Wyllys Baird, a holder of a Harvard MBA, joined the business.

The correspondence regarding 4200 Marine Drive (Box 2, Folder 8) includes a series of letters from October 1955 in which a debate occurs over landscaping vs. installation of a parking lot in this rental property.

1962 John Baird takes a stand and makes a passionate speech for fair housing at City Hall.

In a 1965 letter to an opponent of fair housing, he wrote eloquently that fair housing should be the law of the land if “this nation is going to survive as one of the great free nations of the world.”

The correspondence on 444 N. Michigan Ave. (Box 3, folder 1) includes a July, 1967 letter to the Pullman Corporation in which John Baird urges Pullman to diversify and expand into the Real Estate field.

Bibliographical information including oral history, interview with Baird-June 8, 9, 1978

He won a proxy fight over the company in 1979 and renamed it Baywater Realty & Investment Trust, a tribute to the neighborhood where he grew up.

In 1980 a fifth generation of the Baird family joined the firm, John Baird’s son Stephen W. Baird.

After more than a decade of grooming, Steve Baird succeeded his father as president in 1991, and like his father before him, John Baird retained the chairmanship while the next generation assumed day-to-day control.

2003 Baird & Warner establishes B&W Title Services to give clients a more seamless real estate experience through an exclusive group of local expert attorneys.