PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — For Nick Gross, the earliest memories of his life in an old sea captain’s house along the rolling hills of Aroostook County have always been accompanied by the sounds of a piano.
When he thinks back to his early childhood in that home on the Parsons Road in the late 1960s, he can still hear his three older sisters playing Christmas carols on that majestic 1915 Mason & Hamlin baby grand piano.
But the melody ceased after his father died and his widowed mother had an estate sale in preparation for a move. In 1969, Gross and his five siblings watched various friends and neighbors walk away with most of their possessions.
While that piano did not go with them, Gross acknowledged in a recent interview that he never forgot its splendor or the magnificent sounds it created.
The instrument ended up in the home of Al and Sylvia Weinberg of Presque Isle, a well-respected couple in the community. Al owned and managed a clothing store, Weinberg’s, for more than 60 years. He died on Dec. 15, 2014.
Sylvia Weinberg was a talented singer, singing teacher and actress, and a founding member of the Presque Isle Community Players. She died on Dec. 10, 2013.
Gross said that after he and his siblings graduated from high school, four settled in California and two made homes in Maine. Gross lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Kristin, and children Kellan, Eric and Natalie. He is an entrepreneur attorney, specializing in high-tech law.
He said he tries to visit Maine as often as he can, and it was during one such visit he reconnected with that old piano from his childhood.
Gross said he was visiting Presque Isle with his sister in 2004 and stopped to see Al and Sylvia Weinberg.
“I saw that old piano in the corner, and I asked them if that was the same piano that my mother sold to them,” he said. “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.”
Gross put the matter in the back of his mind. Nine years later, Sylvia Weinberg died at age 84.
A short time later, her son, Jay, called Gross, who was in Germany with his family at the time.
“I was stunned because he called me up and said, ‘Hey, our dad remembered that you wanted this old piano. Do you still want it?’” Gross said. “I couldn’t believe that even in the midst of all of the grief that he had to be feeling, he still remembered that I wanted that piano.”
Gross set out to find an appraiser in order to compensate the Weinberg family fairly. He also needed to find someone to transport the more than 850-pound piano across the country from Maine to California.
“It took me about two months to find somebody to transport it and to find someone to restore it and finish it out here,” he said. “It was very difficult to find someone to restore it. There are not many companies out there that want to take on a job like this.”
The restoration work will be done by Callahan Piano Services in Oakland, California, a full-service shop that offers everything in piano care, from tuning to complete rebuilding.
Gross admitted several people have questioned why he would want to take on the effort and expense of having someone drive an old piano that needs a lot of work from Maine to California.
“Some people think I am crazy,” he admitted. “But that piano has a lot of sentimental value. It reminds me of my childhood and of the home we lived in with my father. But besides that, my son, Kellan, is a very talented piano player. So this piano will be his. It is my hope that this piano will stay in the family, just as it started out.”