The Richmond street piano lives on after finding a new overnight home at Perky Peche.
Its future as a street piano has been in doubt after Kmart head office said it would no longer allow staff to wheel it into the store each night and the piano’s owner Stephanie Buck has been frantically searching for a business to care for it.
She says the response to her Facebook posts asking for help to secure a new home for the piano had “gone ballistic” with about 300 responses from people in the community who wanted the piano to remain on the street for anyone to play.
The Beale piano has been on Richmond streets for the past decade and has been played by beginners to concert pianists.
“When I asked the young woman at Perky Peche, she said ‘yeah, no worries. We can do that’.
“It’s a wonderful, wonderful outcome.”
At Perky Peche, owner Elle Lenihan says housing the piano was a “no brainer”.
“I always saw it outside Kmart but never knew the background or anything about it. I always see the kids playing it and think it’s so cool. It creates a buzz and energy.”
Now that buzz and energy is right outside the shop, in the alley between Perky Peche and the Warehouse. Perky Peche opened just a month ago.
Stephanie calls the Perky Peche team heroes who have saved the piano’s future on the street and says she cannot thank them enough.
“It’s just the little things that make the world go around.”
She says the situation was becoming a little fraught as she searched for a new overnight home for the piano as members of the public were giving Kmart staff a hard time. But she says Kmart staff have always been supportive of the piano and it was not their decision to end their caretaker role.
Stephanie bought the piano for Richmond back in 2014 and artists painted it before it began its life on the street, first at Sundial Square and then outside Kmart. Now it is a little further along the pavement at Perky Peche.
