it's what you want to know
If anyone’s story can blot out all the bad press that came out of T/E schools last year, surely LeRoi Leviston’s can.
His journey from starting Stoga quarterback to Mr. Lev, Valley Forge Middle School teacher, to Roi Lush, full-time rapper, is as improbable as it is inspiring.
The odds against LeRoi, 28, were stacked from the start.
He was born on Long Island to parents who “were very into hardcore drugs,” LeRoi tells SAVVY.
From Devon Manor to The Royal Devon?
Could be.
Developer Brian O’Neill confirms that he’s now the proud owner of the large and long-in-the-tooth nursing home/rehab complex on Lancaster Ave.
Residents and patients are being relocated, 124 staffers are looking for new jobs, and Devon Manor goes dark next month.
This is prime real estate, folks – 8.6 acres with lots of frontage on Route 30 and a deep lot. And just a skip and a jump from the Devon train station.
So what will O’Neill do with it?
Just when you thought Urban Outfitters’ deal for the old Waterloo site might be kaput comes wondrous news: Devon Yards is alive and kicking.
Urban and developer Eli Kahn have agreed on a new plan – their fourth, by our count – that nixes both bugaboos: the four-story apartment building and the parking garage.
The revised proposal is strictly retail and restaurants – nothing residential.
Just what the neighbors ordered.
We’ve got a new name for The Radnor Hotel: Beauty Central.
Essent Spa, an ambitious, luxury day spa, has moved in next to Jay Michael Salon in the old Bernie Robbins space.
Although separately owned, Essent and Jay Michael are a match made in beauty heaven. With a shared reception desk and booking website, you can get your hair styled and your face Botoxed in a single trip.
One stop, multiple ways to get gorgeous.
The father of one of the three Conestoga football players charged in the broomstick sodomy scandal has broken his silence. He’s publicly calling on Chester County DA Tom Hogan to take action: either set a court date or drop the charges.
“Enough is enough,“ Dorian Ross tells SAVVY. “It’s been five months. We want closure.” His son heads off to college in a few weeks and deserves to have this “dark cloud” resolved, he says.
Claiming he needed more time, Hogan postponed a pretrial conference set for May 12 until further notice. But since then, Ross says neither he nor his attorney has heard boo from the DA.
Calling all carnivores! The southern Brazilian steakhouse Fogo de Chao, is now open, the first in a wave of chain restaurants coming to the new King of Prussia Town Center near Wegmans.
Just don’t count on snagging a table this weekend.
Fogo’s GM tells SAVVY he’s already flooded with reservations.
We scoped out the place at Tuesday’s preview dinner; here’s what you need to know:
It’s not often that violent crime comes knocking on the Main Line’s door.
But last week’s brutal murder in Berwyn reminds us that evil can strike anywhere, anytime.
Police are investigating the homicide of a 62-year-old woman in Daylesford Estates, an upscale Toll Brothers’ development that sits between Routes 252 and Route 202 in Tredyffrin.
On June 17, a relative came to check on Denise McDonald Barger and found her beaten to death inside her home.
Coffee geeks are bouncing off the walls this week.
And not just from caffeine.
They’re jazzed because the Main Line’s first La Colombe Café has opened.
At last.
The place is a knockout – a hip makeover of the old Bryn Mawr Garage with soaring ceilings, skylights, original brick and handcrafted wood seating.
Industrial chic done right.
The Main Line never really warmed up to Xilantro, its cold, neon vibe better suited to South Beach than Central Wayne.
But its North Wayne successor, the new Goat’s Beard, well, he’s a whole ’nother animal.
Warm. Fuzzy. Friendly.
Upscale but not uppity.
It helps, too, that the guys behind the Goat are local lads Sean Coyle and Mike “Mac” MacCrory, pals since their Malvern Prep days.
The food biz in his blood, Sean handles operations. (His parents had the TexMex mainstay Binni & Flynn’s; his sister, Meridith, owns Aneu Catering and Paoli’s Fresh Ideas Market.)
Mac’s the money guy – commercial real estate exec by day, goat-herder by night.
The two buddies think they’re onto something.
The Greatest Show on Turf is right around the corner.
Not the Devon Horse Show Grand Prix – although that night’s exploits are pretty swell, too.
No, the spectacle of which we speak comes on Grand Prix Eve when gals from far and wide converge on Devon for the Ladies Day Hat Contest.
What began as a homespun affair with a handful of hopefuls in horsey-trimmed straw toppers (extra points for Devon Blue!) has exploded into a paparazzi-packed proceeding of the first order.
Judge Carson Kressley Presiding. per usual.
(A blue-ribbon Saddlebred competitor as well as a style savant, Carson will be upping his hat game this year, sporting a custom design by la-di-da milliner Christine A Moore. Hey, if she’s good enough for J. Lo and Katy Perry, she’s good enough for our guy, Carson.)
Truly, the whole hat show has vaulted way over the top.
But that’s the fun of it.
