Category Archives: Ed Lemay

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At home with Ed LeMay, 158 West Brookline Street, Boston

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Ed on his front steps, always the welcoming host

I met the ever delightful and charming Ed Le May when I gave him a ride to an outreach concert for the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus a little while back. At that time we were both members of the chorus going to Waltham to sing at the Unitarian Church and we fell into easy conversation along the way. Apropos of what I’m not sure now but he told me of his experiences studying and performing dance skating on roller skates proudly adding that he had won bronze and silver medals. Now, considering we both are gentlemen of a certain age, I was intrigued by this revelation and, as is my want, I shamelessly dug into his past and this is part of what Ed told me.

“In 1966 I went to Boston University School of Management for the MBA Program. After receiving my graduate degree in 1968 I began teaching Management and Accounting at Massassoit Community College in Brockton and Canton for the first graduate class of that new college.” “Over my 36 year career as a college professor I taught business courses including: Accounting, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior, Management and many others.”

“During my tenure I also served for seven years as the Divisional Chair or Dean for the departments of Business, Engineering, Computer Science, Cooperative Education, etc. These represent about thirty percent of all the college departments and about half the student body.”

“At one point I took a leave of absence and taught at the College of Alameda in California for a year.  I also traveled on sabbatical study programs to Japan, all over US and Hawaii studying presentation methods of corporate presenters / consultants in a classroom style in order to incorporate those teaching techniques into my own lectures at College.”

“I took and early retirement in 2003 and traveled to France staying for nine months in Montpelier and Chambréy learning French. I was looking for places where people didn’t speak English and  I ended up at  Chambréy in the Alps because the rest of France is generally cloudy at that time of year but not in the Alps.”

“I was a dance skater for years. I started at the Bal-A-Roué Rollerway in Medford winning all the dance levels, bronze and silver. In the eighties or there-abouts, skating was the thing to do. Tuesday night at Bal-A-Roué and Saturday night at Lansdowne Street, the club in Boston, were Gay nights and I loved it.   When you do one-foot turns sometimes you are on one wheel of the eight so it takes a lot of practice but it’s  a lot of fun!”

“Music and theatre have been of interest of mine all my life. I was always in church choir and high school chorus and also in the class plays. I really wanted to be an actor or singer but I couldn’t see how I could make a living doing that. My eldest brother had a jazz band and I took piano lessons until the ninth grade but then I quit, probably because he was so good – it was hard living in his shadow. Although that didn’t really stop me because I’ve been taking voice lessons on and off for twenty years. For the last five years I’ve been studying voice with Dan Moore. Back in 1968 I took theatre courses at Bridgewater State College and I was in their production of Fiddler on the Roof. I also performed in Community Theatre of Brockton where I was in Company and several other shows. I’ve been singing with the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus since 2011 and I am probably going to take up my piano studies again now that my guest house is all set up.”

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A view of Ed’s spectacular open stair case with Fredrick Remington’s sculpture of a Cow-Boy on his bucking bronco

“I always wanted to do a guest house and I experimented with long term and short term apartment  rentals here at my building in the South End. But it was too complicated when I was teaching full time. In retirement I began the long process of renovating all five floors of my home. At one point during the process I took a break and went to study performance art with Tim Miller in Santa Monica. I stayed with a couple on Venice Beach through an outfit called   Air B-N-B. The people who founded Air B-N-B said even if you have an air mattress in your living room you can be a Bed and Breakfast and that’s the origin of their name. But the company now runs the gambit from simple to full service accommodations globally.  I am what they term a “Super Host” with 80% of my guests rating me with a five stars top rating  based on quickness of response, comfort, amenities, decor etc. It just seems a perfect fit for me, I like traveling and I can relate to people’s different needs.  Some of my guests have busy commitments while they are in Boston and need their privacy and others like to sit and talk over coffee or a glass of wine.”

☼☼☼☼☼

So, let’s join Ed in his luxurious guest house which is a compilation of his  lifetime  study of the art of fine living. Please click the link below this picture to see an interview with Ed. Then click the other link to see a slide show of his home / guest house. You can expand the You tube window to full screen by clicking the appropriate icon at the bottom right of the video window.  Ed Le May (58)

Click here for: Chatting with Ed about his guest house

Click here for: Photo essay of Ed’s guest house and home