Former resident recaptures music
Finds memories in 1915 piano from childhood home
BERKELEY, California — Many of Nick Gross’ most significant early memories centered on the sight and sounds of his three older sisters playing a majestic 1915 Mason & Hamlin baby grand piano at their home in Presque Isle.
But the music was abruptly silenced in 1969 when, after his father died, the piano was sold.
It took a great deal of work and expense to recapture his memories, but after 47 years, Gross is finally hearing the fully restored piano being played again, this time in his California home by his three children.
“It took fifteen months for the restoration, but it now rests gloriously in our living room,” Gross said during a recent phone interview about the piano that used to sit in his childhood home on the Parsons Road in Presque Isle the late 1960s. “We had a party when it finally got here.”
Gross said during a 2015 interview with the Bangor Daily News that after the death of his father, his mother had to sell the piano and other family possessions in preparation for a move.
The piano ended up in the home of Al and Sylvia Weinberg of Presque Isle, a well-respected couple in the community.
Gross, who now is an attorney specializing in high-tech law, said that after he and his siblings graduated from high school, four settled in California and two made homes in Maine. He now lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Kristin, and children Kellan, Eric and Natalie but still visits Maine as often as he can. During one such visit in 2004 he dropped in on Al and Sylvia Weinberg and reconnected with the old piano.
“I saw that old piano in the corner, and I asked them if was the same piano that my mother sold to them,” Gross recalled. “Sylvia said it was, and I asked them if it still worked. When Sylvia said it did, I just couldn’t believe it. She sat down at the piano and played me a little tune, and I said jokingly that if they ever wanted to get rid of it, I would like to have it.”
Nine years later, after Sylvia Weinberg’s death, Jay Weinberg, her son, sold the piano to Gross, who had the 850-pound baby grand transported out to California.
The restoration work was done by Callahan Piano Services in Oakland, California, a full-service shop that offers everything in piano care, from tuning to complete rebuilding.
Gross said it took “thousands of dollars,” to restore the piano fully. He said he put together a scrapbook full of pictures and details about the history of the piano, its connection to his family, the restoration process and its journey from Maine to California so his family will have it as a keepsake.
Gross said when the work was finally completed, the family had a kind of “coming out party” for the piano.
“Local musicians and performers got to play with it,” he said. “A local composer was having her Steinway restored at the same time so it was a lot of fun to play them side by side.”
His son, Kellan, 16, a very talented piano player was one of the first to entertain the crowd with the new piano at the party, according to Gross. Kellan played the theme to Pirates of the Caribbean.
Gross said that some thought he was crazy to go to all that trouble and expense to obtain and refurbish the baby grand from across the country. But he said that the piano reminds him of the home he lived in with his father in Presque Isle, and that he will be able to pass on the heirloom and memories to his family.
