By Christopher Haraden 

During the past several decades, Larry Kellem dedicated himself to large-scale projects to make Hull a better place – from helping to establish the Hull Medical Center to leading the beautification of the Kenberma business district – but his family says the well-known attorney, who died Jan. 12 at age 90, relished giving his community service and legal work a personal touch. 

“He was just so in love with Hull,” his son David recalled last week. “He helped a lot of people privately because it was the right thing to do. And he always looked out for the good of the town, no matter what he was doing.” 

David Kellem recalled an instance many years ago when a local couple planned their wedding at Temple Beth Sholom, where Mr. Kellem served at various times as president, treasurer, and a board member. On the day of the ceremony, the groom arrived to find Mr. Kellem, paint brush in hand, sprucing up the front of the building. Nobody had asked him to do it. 

“He wanted everything to look beautiful for them, and for the Jewish community,” his son said Friday. “He just cared that much.” 

Mr. Kellem grew up in Roxbury, spent summers in Hull as a child, and moved his family here permanently in the 1950s. He met his future wife, Cynthia Swartz, when they worked at the same summer camp for Jewish youth. The couple had been married for 62 years when Mrs. Kellem, a retired English teacher at Hull High School, died in 2016. 

“He and my Mom were surrogate parents and mentors to many kids in Hull,” said David, who with his brother, Steven, eventually joined their father in the family’s law firm, Kellem & Kellem. Mr. Kellem’s daughter, Amy Slotnick, “escaped the practice of law,” the family wrote in Mr. Kellem’s obituary, and works in the mortgage industry. He was the grandfather of six and great-grandfather of two. 

In a legal career that spanned more than 50 years, Mr. Kellem represented local residents in court, businesses applying to licensing boards, and developers seeking permits for new projects. Over the years he provided legal services to the town’s light board, redevelopment authority, and was associate town counsel, and wrote several zoning bylaws and reports interpreting municipal regulations. 

In his eulogy at a service at the temple on Monday, David Kellem recalled that his father enjoyed spending time in Kenberma, where he would go “ostensibly to do his personal business, but really to dispense legal advice and sage counsel to all of the townspeople who grabbed him and said, ‘Hey Larry, can I ask you a quick question?’”  

His son said he was a willing adviser on legal matters of all kinds – his children lovingly referred to him as “Loophole Larry” – and he enjoyed helping community groups raise funds and build membership. David Kellem said his father’s favorite accomplishment was managing the 1971 Hull Little League championship team sponsored by Paragon Park. 

“One might argue that many of us love Hull as much as Larry Kellem did, but nobody loved it more,” said John Galluzzo, vice president of the Hull Historical Society. “Larry always had Hull’s best interests in mind. He was always thinking, planning and dreaming about growth, the future, ways for the Hull community to improve. Many of the positive changes that have benefitted Hull in the past half century have his stamp on them – the expansion of the library, the redevelopment of the Kenberma business district, all the way down to the green benches liberally spread around town.” 

In addition to leading the chamber of commerce and lending his legal expertise to business enterprises like the Atlantic Aquarium, Mr. Kellem contributed to Hull in myriad ways, ranging from chairing the local draft board during the Vietnam War to becoming a key figure in the disaster relief efforts following the devastating Blizzard of 1978. 

“My decades at the Times gave me the opportunity to report on many of Larry’s initiatives on behalf of his legal clients, town government, and Hull residents in general,” said former Hull Times Publisher Susan Ovans. “Larry was at the forefront of Hull ‘boosters’ in the word’s most generic sense. He was keenly interested in every aspect of life on the peninsula, and that manifested in working hard, and for a long time, to establish the Hull Medical Center, for example, or poring over proposed bylaws to be sure the wording for an article to be presented at town meeting didn’t have unintended consequences.” 

In the 1980s, Mr. Kellem realized that development was coming to Hull, regardless of whether the town was ready to accept it, so he used his influence to persuade builders of large projects to give back to the community. 

“However anyone feels about development and developers, my Dad always believed that what he was doing was for the good of the town,” David Kellem said. “He wanted developers to improve Hull [and] got them to offer amenities along with their projects, even when it wasn’t required by law.” 

His first large-scale client was Nantascot Place on George Washington Boulevard, a condominium project that was in the works for many years before being completed in 1987. One of his proudest achievements, according to his son, was helping to create the zoning that allowed the current Nantasket Beach Resort hotel and conference center to be built in 2000. 

Mr. Kellem represented developers large and small, including General Investment and Development, which built the Hall Estate condominiums. He wrote the townhouse residence district zoning bylaw that facilitated the development, then put his money where his mouth was and purchased a unit on Gatehouse Lane, where he lived for many years. 

Earlier, he represented MGM Grand when the casino operator sought to legalize gambling at the Hall Estate property in the 1970s, a high-profile assignment for the self-professed small-town lawyer. 

His son laughed when he recalled the casino executives visiting Mr. Kellem at his office in his Nantasket Avenue home to discuss the multi-million-dollar project, “sitting in our living room with the shag rug and the gold curtains [and] some furniture my parents probably bought at Building #19” – about as far from the Las Vegas glitz as they could get. 

“When he had his law office in the house, his clients would literally bang on the door and he would have them come in and eat with us at our kitchen table, and then they would go downstairs and work for a few hours,” David Kellem said. “That would happen all the time.” 

Galluzzo, who also served on the board of directors of Manet Community Health Center, which now operates the Hull Medical Center, cited Mr. Kellem’s early involvement in its creation in the late 1960s. A sign in front of the building recognizes that it was named in his honor. 

“After the tragic and unnecessary death of a high school student shook the community and demonstrated the need for a medical center in Hull, Larry joined others in spearheading the movement that resulted in today’s center,” Galluzzo noted, adding that Mr. Kellem’s enthusiasm for the town continued over the years. “When Fox 25’s morning news team arrived in Hull for the long-awaited ‘Zip Trip’ segment on our community, Larry, as head of the chamber of commerce, took the prime seat and smilingly did what he loved most – promoting Hull to the world.” 

Town Counsel James Lampke, who grew up in Hull, said Mr. Kellem “was truly a town leader and a dear friend to many. 

“Larry was the type of person every town wished they had as a resident,” Lampke said this week. “Hull was very fortunate to count Larry as a true Hull champion. He loved his family, of course, who in their own right were and are wonderful residents. But Larry had a true and unique love for the town. For many years as the only attorney with an active office in Hull, he helped countless people and was very generous in providing legal guidance. He set an example by his actions worthy of everyone’s emulation.”  

While many who remembered Mr. Kellem this week cited his long list of community activities, others recalled that his calm demeanor and gift for conversation made him good company, no matter the venue. 

“We shared office space in the Conway building on Nantasket Avenue, and Larry often climbed the stairs to pop in and share a story idea or the contextual history of a lingering policy issue that was making news,” Ovans said. “He loved gossip and was a reliable source as to the veracity of many a rumor. And he had an opinion about everything. One of the most lovely things about him was that he wanted to hear your opinions, too, even when he didn’t agree with them.” 

Galluzzo added that Mr. Kellem’s legacy will long be felt in the town where he dedicated so much of his life to civic involvement. 

“He showed us what could be done if one committed to volunteerism, his actions inspiring us to be better citizens ourselves,” Galluzzo said. “Hull has always had its pantheon of civic champions. Larry, with more than 60 years of his service to the town, stands among them.” 

Mr. Kellem’s full obituary can be found by clicking here. 

The Hull Medical Center’s building on George Washington Boulevard is named in honor of Lawrence A. Kellem in recognition of his role in its founding.

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