Arthur Leaman passes

 BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - HOTELIER ARTHUR LEAMAN, creator of The Golden Lemon Inn in Dieppe Bay, St. Kitts died at his home on Nevis on Friday morning, August 24. He was 87 years old.

Born on May 21, 1925, Arthur was the third son of the Leamans. He grew up in New Jersey, where he was a star pupil, basketball player, and entertainer who entered Haverford College without graduating from high school. World War II ended and Arthur, who was the top Spanish student, was assigned to teach Spanish to returning GIs to fulfill their language requirement to enter college.

They resented his youth, but he won them over with an unusual teaching method: each class began with the ‘Spanish dirty word of the day’ which had to be used in a proper sentence. The school had to admit his unorthodox method produced some of the department’s highest scores.

While attending college he met the uncle of one of his classmates who lived on the island of St. Thomas and told stories of his life there that enchanted Leaman. He nagged his parents and, for his graduation gift, was given a Caribbean Cruise on a small freighter. He hated it. Especially when the ship broke down at the one island he had no interest in seeing: St. Kitts.

The only open hotel was The Palms which had two dormitory rooms, one for men, one for women, one bathroom and one shower. Not his style at all. Fate stepped in: a local white lady saw him sitting on the porch, talked to him and invited him to stay in her house outside of town, a large wooden building where she lived alone, her two sons having been injured in the War. He did so on one condition, that he earn his keep by cooking dinners for them. Before he left two weeks later, she drove him around the island, but never turned down the street in Dieppe Bay that would lead to his future.

Years passed, Arthur moved to New York City and eventually got a job at House and Garden Magazine where he was promoted to temporary decorating editor. He held the spot for over fifteen years. In the early sixties he was doing a story at The Kennedy White House. His photographer had found an advertisement in The Wall Street Journal for a beach front property for sale on the northwest coast of St. Kitts. Leaman answered the ad using a sheet of ‘borrowed’ White House stationery.

A few weeks later he flew down with two would-be partners. He saw the place’s potential, his friends did not, so he went it alone, transforming the five bedroom property over a couple of years, while commuting back and forth to his job in New York.

He invited friends to see the place before it opened. They told him he was wasting his time and money. They said he had bought a lemon. “In that case,” he said, “it had better be a Golden Lemon.” And so the legend was born.

Arthur Leaman, with his writing partner, Miss Jose Wilson, was the author of many books on interior decoration, a decorating dictionary and several ‘how to’ books. He is survived by his life partner of 42 years, Martin Kreiner, his grand niece, Mrs. Elizabeth Chase Rochette of Paris, France, and his long-time associate and friend, Solomon Glasford of Dieppe Bay.