Glen Arbor’s crowned prince tickles the ivories

This story, about the late Andy Anderson, who passed away earlier this month, originally ran in the Glen Arbor Sun on June 19, 1998
Here in Glen Arbor Andy Anderson’s suave demeanor makes him the local icon. This is the man who owns not one, but five cars that most locals consider luxurious. And he softens women’s hearts every time he churns out ragtime tunes from a piano bench. His storytelling of years past made a lasting impression on me the first time I met Glen Arbor’s most popular man …

You see Andy has yarns to tell from plenty of different places. He fought in the Pacific in World War II; He went to Harvard for a degree in business and played piano with Leonard Bernstein. He started his own business in Akron, Ohio, which has since expanded nationwide. But my favorite stories of Andy’s are from his sailing days in the Caribbean since his retirement.
Listen: “I retired about ‘71 or ‘72 because I had an objective. I always wanted to go back to sea, but not on a light cruiser. So I bought a Ketch. I talked my wife into going along and I convinced my kids to become the crew. We took off and sailed down to the Caribbean. We were fascinated by Costa Rica — the people, their system of government — so we stayed the maximum allowed 90 days. But by the end of the 90 days I knew the immigration guy. He was nice, spoke pretty good English, so I bought him a bottle of rum — a present so I could stay a little longer.”
Andy once dreamed of circumnavigating the globe, but the engine on his boat broke down and he never bought a new one. Anderson has taken more to land toys since then and he’s best known in Glen Arbor for driving classic cars. On any given day Andy might be seen in his ‘84 Mercedes Benz station wagen, his miniscule ‘71 convertible, his ‘80 four-door sedan or his ‘80 Toyota which he’s been restoring ever since he got it. Andy also owns a 1951 Chevy truck, which he only uses to haul furniture.
But mostly he uses a car to come play the piano at the Leelanau Coffee Roasters, where he stops by sometimes four or five times a day. Andy is such a fixture at the Arens brothers’ place that they bought a piano — an antique 1912 Grinnel Brothers piece just for him … and then moved it to their new location on Western Avenue just for him.
“Moving the Coffee Roasting Company and not the piano would be like moving the U.S. Archives and not the Constitution,” John Arens said.