By Sun staff
Alexander Cassie, a venerable, longtime antiques dealer who operated a business in Wells, Maine, and exhibited at Brimfield, as well as a noted historian and historic preservationist, died June 8 at Sherrill House in Jamaica Plain.
Born in 1950 and raised in a naval family in Hull, Mass., Mr. Cassie graduated from Brandeis University, where he studied with Professor of Fine Arts, Gerald Bernstein.
Mr. Cassie worked under Robert Bell Rettig at the Massachusetts Historical Commission, writing National Register of Historic Places nominations for sites in Boston and Salem, as well as for the Mills-Stebbins Villa in Springfield, among other historic resources in the Commonwealth.
Afterwards, Mr. Cassie relocated to New York, where he served as the research assistant for ‘Manhattan Moves Uptown: An Illustrated History’ (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1976).
In 1975, Mr. Cassie returned to Boston, where he turned his attention to saving the Jordan Marsh Department Store and other historic buildings in the city from demolition. He was among the founders of the City Conservation League and became an authority on the architectural development of the South End.
An early director of the South End Historical Society, Mr. Cassie helped plan its annual house tours. He was also instrumental in the acquisition of the Wallis-Dane House, which became the organization’s headquarters.
In 2020, Mr. Cassie moved to his final residence in Roxbury, where he worked as a real-estate appraiser in the Boston area. He had recently liquidated the inventory of Olde Dutch Cottage Candy, a longtime candy and antiques shop in the South End.