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Rewarding excellence since 1956
History
Louis Gerondelis
Louis Gerondelis was born on December 11, 1897, on the Greek island of Lesvos. He came to this country at a young age and opened a luncheonette with his brother, Charlie, on Munroe Street in Lynn, Massachusetts. Neither brother ever married. They both had a passion for farming. In 1930, in the midst of the Great Depression, they pooled their resources and paid $30,000 to buy 60 acres of farmland in the neighboring town of Saugus. The land abutted both sides of a road known as the Newburyport Turnpike which a few years later became US Route 1, a major commercial thoroughfare going from Maine to Florida. By the 1950’s Route 1 had become quite developed and the land along it very valuable.
Louis’s only heirs were two nieces who lived in Greece. When he sat down to plan his estate, he left sizeable bequests to the two nieces, but that was only a small portion of the wealth he had accumulated as a result of his purchase of the land in Saugus.
At the suggestion of his lawyer and friend, Attorney Charles Demakis, Mr. Gerondelis decided to start the Gerondelis Foundation in 1956. Over time, he sold some of his farmland, but ultimately transferred to the Foundation what he did not sell, which today consists of more than twenty acres spread over three parcels. The Foundation has ground leases with three tenants: Target Corporation, Kelly’s Roast Beef and North Shore Bank. It is the rent from those leases which funds the Foundation’s philanthropic endeavors.
Mr. Gerondelis died in July 1986 at the age of 88.
