Jay Baker is sitting on a couch in his New York apartment, describing the kind of people he and his wife, Patty, tend to fund. Dynamic, he says, full of excitement, bounding with energy, people who make things happen. Patty glances at him and interjects like it’s dawning on her for the first time: “That sounds like us!”
The couple, perhaps Naples’ best-known philanthropists, laugh in their merry, full-bodied way. But it’s true. Big dreamers and relentlessly hard workers in their own lives, the Bakers gravitate toward people who want to take something small—a regional theater company, a community hospital, an upstart senior center—and turn it into something grand.
Patty is a Broadway producer, taking shows from script to stage. Jay is the retired president of Kohl’s and, together with his partners, morphed the regional department store into a national powerhouse, with sales surpassing $6 billion at his retirement.
As philanthropists, Patty and Jay had defined the causes important to them—healthcare, the arts, seniors, children—well before they arrived in Naples. They didn’t take long to spot ways to advance those interests. Their first local gift went to The Naples Players to build Sugden Theater before they even purchased a house in town.
Today, their names flank numerous institutions: The Baker Museum at Artis—Naples; the NCH Baker Hospital Downtown; the Baker Theatre and Education Center at the under-construction Gulfshore Playhouse complex; the Baker Senior Center Naples; the Jay & Patty Baker Preschool of the Arts; Baker Park; the Kizzie Theater at The Naples Players, named for their beloved dog. Most of these places didn’t exist when we honored the couple as Men & Women of the Year in 2008. Though they were already making waves for their involvement with Naples Museum of Art (now The Baker Museum), The Naples Players and NCH.
The Baker name does not simply signify financial support. If you get a check from Patty and Jay, you get Patty and Jay along with it. The couple serves on various boards where they help local visionaries achieve their goals and solve challenges. Jay most recently rejoined the NCH board following a dispute between the administration and community doctors. He helped lead the search for a new CEO, and fully satisfied with the board’s find, he and Patty pledged a $20 million matching gift to establish a satellite for the renowned orthopedic Hospital for Special Surgery.
The hands-on approach suits them. “It keeps him young,” Patty says, nudging her husband. He’s 89. She’s 77. Both have the energy of kids and, sitting knee-to-knee, fingers occasionally intertwined, the unabashed love of newlyweds.
They could have waited until they were gone to divvy their estate, but that would have taken the joy out of it. “It’s an amazing feeling to walk into a senior center that has just been built, to walk into a hospital that has radically changed, to see a museum come from nowhere,” Jay says. Patty adds: “The gratification for me is seeing people’s reactions and hearing how what they have in Naples is so great and knowing we’re a part of that.”
— Jennifer Reed