Baptist Retirement Home, Melrose Park

The Baptist Retirement Home is a historic retirement home at 316 Randolph Street in Maywood, Illinois. The home was built in 1930 for the Baptist Old People's Home organization, which was founded in Maywood in 1906; the large-scale building replaced its original, smaller facilities. At the time, retirement care was shifting from family-centered to institutional practices, and the elderly began to choose retirement home living instead of being forced there by a lack of family or money. When it opened, the facility was racially segregated and only admitted white residents; it also restricted membership to members of the Baptist faith who were over seventy years old. Architect Elmer C. Roberts designed the Tudor Revival building, which features half-timbering on its upper stories, towers enclosing its stairwells, and projecting bays topped by crenellated parapets. Additions were placed on the building in 1955 and 1965 to expand its capacity. ()