Gus G. Widmayer

Youth and education: Widmayer is the 4th of 5 children of businessman Francis J. Widmayer II and Gertrude Marie (Catanese). Born in Brooklyn, the town home was birthplace to his mother and maternal grandfather and namesake, A. G. (Gus) Catanese, since 1906. Raised in Acton, and Falmouth, MA, he studied abroad in 1977-78 at l'Université Catholique de l'Ouest in Angers, France, and received his BA from Notre Dame in 1980.

Professional life: Widmayer works in the semiconductor industry at OX3.com. He developed the five-story home at 51 Appleton Street, Boston, as well as other residential and commercial real estate. He is a partner in Orion Park, Ayer, MA and founded the Vineyard Sound Land Company that oversees protected shoreline with a view shed to Martha's Vineyard from Falmouth.

Biographer: A lifelong genealogist, he has penned several books. His first, on the Widmayer family history was completed in 2003. The family arrived at Philadelphia in 1826 from the farming community of Strumpfelbach in Wurttemberg, Germany, and quickly made their way to Manhattan where they developed much of W. 23rd St. between 6th and 7th Aves. In 2005, he published Herbert Searvant In The Trials of Cora Chapman. In 2006, A Gentleman's Guide To The Belvidere Plain was released. Widmayer published travel diaries of his visits to Dublin (2010), Los Angeles (2011), Washington, D.C. (2012), Berlin to Budapest (2013), Paris (2014), Tokyo (2015), Sicily (2016), and Thirty-eight States, a U.S. Grand Tour (2017-18).

Family Life and Affiliations: From 1986 to 2008, Widmayer made his home in Boston's South End before moving to Indian Hill House in Groton, MA. His only child with Luisa M. C. P. R. is a daughter Sophia Louise, born in 2007. He is a member of the German-American Heritage Foundation, the National Trust of England, Groton Historical Society, Belvidere Plains Association, Falmouth Historical Society, Friends of Nobska Light, Tower Hill Botanic Garden, and Groton Conservation Trust.