Lester Heller, 89; involved in Provincetown arts scene

Lester Heller, a retired educator, was also owner of the Provincetown Summer Playhouse.

When teenage arsonists destroyed the Provincetown summer playhouse in March 1977, Lester and Adele Heller, the owner-operators, committed to rebuilding.

They relocated from Maryland to Provincetown and poured their resources into the project, which included a design competition judged by renowned architect I.M. Pei that immersed architects into the community.

"It really was quite fascinating, the whole process really opened your mind up," said Mr. Heller's daughter, Julie of Provincetown.

A lack of funding, however, prevented Mr. Heller from seeing the project through, though it remained his dream until the end of his life to again see the stage of the Provincetown-Playhouse-On-The-Wharf light up.

Mr. Heller, a retired educator and theater owner, died Jan. 11 at Cape Cod Hospital of a perforated bowel. He was 89.

Born in Newark, Mr. Heller was raised in the Bronx and attended Townsend Harris High School in 1935.

Despite growing up poor during the Great Depression, as a child he would pay 25 cents to attend shows at the Metropolitan Opera and Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he cultivated his love for the arts.

In 1939, Mr. Heller earned a bachelor's degree in botany from City College of New York, where he also was a fencing champion, and then received a master's degree in marine biology in 1941 from the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology at Coos Bay, according to his daughter.

Mr. Heller worked as a statistician for the agricultural census during World War II before becoming a junior high school math and science teacher in Montgomery County, Md., during the mid-1940s.

While teaching at Leland Junior High School, he met his wife, Adele, a schoolteacher with whom he shared a classroom. She began to woo him, according to their daughter, by leaving sandwiches in his school mailbox, and in 1948 the couple married.

While teaching, Mr. Heller earned a master's degree in math from the University of Maryland in 1958.

In 1961, he earned a master's degree in advanced math from Boston College, according to his daughter.

In the early 1960s, Mr. Heller taught calculus at the Tacoma Park/Silver Spring campus of Montgomery College before moving to the larger Rockville Campus, where he became head of the Multimedia Center and a well-recognized filmmaker, his daughter said.

As adviser of the campus' folk music club, Mr. Heller and his wife were at the center of the faculty's entertainment, his daughter said.

"One of the teachers from the college wrote that my father basically provided the social life for so many teachers because after the folk music concerts, there would be a party at my parents' house that brought together musicians, teachers, and the students," she said.

In 1977, the Hellers retired to Provincetown to tend to the rebuilding of their playhouse, which they were able to purchase in 1972 with no money down because they promised to maintain the playhouse's tradition.

Between the time of its purchase and the fire, the Hellers had established an all-equity company that quickly earned recognition for its artistic performances, his daughter said.

After his wife's death in 1997, Mr. Heller became a fixture at his daughter's Provincetown art house, the Julie Heller Gallery, where he was "always ready to dispense his wisdom," said Tracey Anderson of Provincetown, who grew to know Mr. Heller well in the six years she has worked at the gallery.

"He was as much a fixture in the gallery as any piece of art," Anderson said.

"He was very entertaining, a great humorist and practical joker. He had a huge sensitivity for people and sometimes his gruff exterior was a mask for that."

Mr. Heller also educated himself about most of the artwork that hung in the gallery, and when asked, could recount the "full story behind each piece," Anderson said.

To memorialize the love of art the Hellers cultivated in their lifetimes, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum plans to host a series of free lectures focusing on art history this summer.

Also, a memorial service will be held at the Julie Heller Gallery in the summer.

In addition to his daughter Julie, Mr. Heller leaves another daughter, Amy of Provincetown.