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The following summer he returned to take possession of a cedar-shingled, vintage 1826 building at 6 Bayview Ave. A violent
thunderstorm shook the place on his first night there but, in the morning, an eagle was hovering overhead. “I took it as a good omen,”
he said.
Still there was the question: “What can I do here, 700 miles from New York City?” As a young man, Bruce had taught summers
at a music camp in Raymond and then, as now, he was teaching at New York’s Turtle Bay Music School. He began to think about
opening a summer piano school in Lubec.

He didn’t want it to be your usual piano school. Instead, it would welcome adults of every ability level, from beginners to near-pro-
fessionals. Students would expect to work hard but not to compete. It would be a stress-free, personally rewarding musical immersion,
allowing time to explore the area’s natural beauty.

“People laughed when I told them about the plan,” Bruce said. “Who would come all the way to Lubec to study piano?”
Then he knocked on the door of Bayviews Bed & Breakfast and talked to innkeeper Kathryn Rubeor. “It’s a crazy but wonderful
idea,” she said. “Why don’t you go for it?”
“Everything fell into place,” Bruce said still with a bit of wonder. The name “SummerKeys” popped into his head one day while
he was driving around with a friend.

A painting that he had bought for $3.75 in a thrift store sold for $5,500 at Sothebys. The money went to building repairs and to buy
pianos, including a circa 1890 grand with ornate legs (still in use) that he found in Elmer’s Barn in Ellsworth. A shed at the back of
the house became two practice studios – papered with cardboard egg cartons for soundproofing (still there) – to house the two pianos
he found in Turner.

Bruce wrote a press release to every newspaper on the East Coast and the Washington Post picked it up and printed it on the front
page of its travel section in April. He received nearly 400 inquiries which translated into 50 students that summer.

For the first few seasons Bruce did all the teaching and it was all piano. Then a colleague asked if he could teach cello and the
faculty grew from there. “It was as if we couldn’t do anything wrong,” Bruce said.
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Students practice cellos on the lawn, with Passamaquoddy Bay in the background.
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