Gordon Keller was a music lover who knew how to rip a piano apart and rebuild it better than before. He was a Renaissance man and a quick wit who loved music and life, a man who enjoyed traveling and fishing. He built a reputation as one of the region’s premier piano retailers with an expertise in rebuilding pianos. Keller, known to many simply as the "Piano Man," died of congestive heard failure on Oct. 25. He was 82.

"All music lovers of Alexandria are saddened by the passing of a unique and kind gentleman," said Fred Krafft, a piano teacher who worked with Keller for 19 years.

A native of Carlyle, Penn., Keller was born in 1927 to John and Grace Keller, the second of five children. In 1946, he enlisted in the United States Army and was stationed in Japan, serving supply for the 24th Infantry Division and playing string bass in an Army jazz band. After the war was over, Keller returned to the United States and graduated from the Rockwell School of Piano Tuning. He came to Washington, D.C. in 1949 to work as a piano technician.

In 1954, he opened his first piano store in Alexandria. At the height of his career, Keller owned and operated seven stores in the in Virginia and Maryland. His store on North St. Asaph Street, located in the building that was once the home of the Alexandria Gazette, was his headquarters for several decades. Although he was known as the "Piano Man," Keller knew how to play only one song: "Tenderly."

"He played it really well," said Holly Keller Davis, his daughter. "The reason he always played the same song was so he could play it on different pianos so people could hear the difference between the instruments."

Keller was experienced at "voicing" the piano, a process that involved adjusting the soundboard and the hammers to change the tone of the instrument. This was a skill that earned him positions at the Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap Center and Alexandria public schools. At one point, 60 students a week would come through the St. Asaph store for lessons. But Keller felt that the popularity of the piano and its music waned in recent decades, with children becoming more interested in sports than taking piano lessons.

"Pianos don’t sell like they used to," Keller told the Alexandria Gazette Packet for a 2006 profile. "I think I was alive during the good days."

He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Mary Alice Keller; a son, Daron Keller; a daughter, the Rev. Holly Keller Davis; a son-in-law, E. Van Davis; his father’s wife, Frances Hoffman of Lewisburg, Penn.; a sister, Emily Keller Parker of Aurora, Colo.; and five grandchildren, Kathryn Keller Wood, Rebecca Keller, Abigail Keller, E. Keller Davis; and Margery Davis.