When it comes to property, Planning Board candidate Gary Lesanto has been on every side. Over his career he has built (as developer and contractor) more than 50 homes, though only three in Needham, including his own. He’s been a commercial property owner, a property manager, and an investor. Retired now from building houses, he still travels to Florida not for leisure but to advise a friend who is developing new homes there.
Lesanto and his wife, Katherine, moved to Needham in 2001, about five years after he had started his construction company, Lesanto Fine Homes. They raised their two 20-something sons here. Katherine Lesanto is a special education teacher at Sunita Williams Elementary School.
Raised in Waltham, Lesanto studied accounting as an undergrad at Bentley University. He began keeping the books for a friend who was a developer and decided that was a better path. “He did residential subdivisions and a little bit of mixed use. So I got to see that firsthand, and he kind of mentored me. Through that, I decided to put my toe in the water and start with single family houses.”
Most of the 53 homes Lesanto built were in Wellesley, Natick, Newton, and other surrounding towns — which required navigating a lot of building bylaws.
Lesanto said, unlike many builders, he welcomed the design review process that towns like Wellesley require for larger homes, including those on smaller lots. While Needham has shied away from the idea as cost and time-prohibitive, Lesanto thinks it’s ultimately beneficial.
He said he wanted his homes to fit into the neighborhood. “I’m a builder who tried to make that new house look like an old house. I wanted to go in. I wanted to meet and greet [the neighbors]. The name of my company was Lesanto Development Corp. I didn’t [set up an] LLC, liquidate it, open up another one. Lesanto Development Corp. was incorporated in 1997 and it’s still incorporated today. I put my name on everything I did, and I went into communities and I came out of them making sure that what I built was accepted by the majority of the people.”
He believes the secret of his success was that his homes included design elements that effectively hid the mass of the building. He pointed to the last home he built several years ago on Leewood Street in Wellesley. “It was a bigger home. No question. [But] you don’t get offended when you drive into the neighborhood. So I think that depending on a project’s display, on how it’s designed, set back … Are the stories stepped back? Is it a hidden fourth floor? There are ways to design things. How does it present? And if it presents in such a way that’s not overpowering and causes harm to an abutter, that’s going to be enormous.”
His focus on design elements is one of the factors that drew Lesanto back into Needham’s large house conversation and led him to run for Planning Board. Lesanto had served on the 2017 committee that had set the current building guidelines. He said that one of that committee’s priorities was to encourage builders to use step-backs and eaves to reduce the sense of bulk.
However, he admits that the 2017 rules left gaps that builders exploited, leading to the call for further review this year. He is concerned, though, that, among other issues, the proposed new bylaws are too design-agnostic, which may create other exploitable gaps.
As a property owner, Lesanto also knows what it’s like to be dwarfed by a new neighbor. The property next door to a 1½-story commercial property he owns on Beacon Street in Newton had been the home of a series of restaurants. New owners were planning to build a four-story building with more than 60 residential units.
“It was a 38,000 square foot lot with wetlands behind. A water table issue. We worked with the town. I was on the other side, not as a developer.”
Lesanto brought in consultants to talk about the water issues, the shadow the building would cast, and other issues.
“Well, the project didn’t end up being 80 units. It ended up being 30, 34 or 36 units. It wasn’t four stories. It was 3½ stories. It was pushed back off my property a lot. This was a negotiation from an abutter and Newton took it seriously.”
“And so at the end of the day, I went from disgruntled to being okay with the product. And that’s important. And that’s how I think you have to do it. If you drive by the property, you’ll still look at my building and you’re still going to think it looks pretty.” The new construction, he said, added gables like Lesanto’s building and used matching brick. “It fits in a little better. Right? That’s what I’m getting at. And I think in areas of existing neighborhoods, there’s always someone on the other side of it that you have to be considerate about.” (The investors behind the adjacent property were not contacted for this article).
Lesanto’s business interests keep him busy. He says he has cut down from 80-hour weeks to 40-50. He always made time for family and now there’s more. “My family has always been my priority.” He works out, he said. “I have a lot of friends that are semi-retired or retired and we do a lot of coffee and breakfast, which is fun.” But to a great extent, Lesanto remains deep in the world of real estate.
Katherine has about five more years of teaching before she will qualify for a full pension. “Maybe then we will enjoy a slower phase,” Lesanto said. Then he paused. “Though a lot of friends I’ve met along the way have said, ‘Hey, if you’re going to do property management now, will you manage our property?’ And that’s different. So I’m actually taking on other properties …” Even that slower phase may be busy.
Editor’s note: This article was updated at 9:45 on Mar. 30.
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