Alan J. Wagg, a founder of the Provincetown AIDS Support Group and longtime local real estate agent, died on June 8, 2025 at Life Care of Plymouth after suffering a stroke in April. He was 80.
“He was one of the funniest people I ever knew,” said his friend and former business partner Gregg Russo, adding that Alan’s sense of humor was so subtle and dry, “you didn’t even realize how funny it was until a minute had passed.”
Alan was born on Aug. 1, 1944 in Fitchburg to Olavi and Helvi (Kiuru) Wagg. He grew up on their family farm in Ashburnham with his older brother, Edwin, and attended Cushing Academy, a private school, enjoying an idyllic childhood as part of a large Finnish community. Musically inclined, Alan fell in love with the accordion and became a talented player.
He studied radio and broadcasting at Emerson College, eventually becoming an elementary school teacher and then a drama teacher.
In the late 1960s, Alan moved to Provincetown. “He wanted to be in an environment where there was a gay community, even though it was nascent,” said Gregg. For a time, he owned and lived in a small guesthouse on Pearl Street, and in 1972 rented the entire Land’s End Inn, where he lived for a year.
Then he purchased 166 Commercial St. and turned it into an inn, Casablanca Guests, which he ran until 1993. “A place you can call home! Attractive rooms or studio apartment, sensible rates, friendly service,” said a 1981 ad in Gay Community News, reprinted in Building Provincetown, which also noted that U.S. Rep. Barney Frank was a regular guest there in the 1980s.
In 1977, at the same location, Alan founded Atlantic Bay Real Estate, running it with partner Gregg until 2005.
“He was a consummate professional with everyone he dealt with and a gentleman of the first order,” said Gregg, who met Alan when he rented Gregg his first Provincetown apartment in 1980. They became close friends, said Gregg, spending holidays together and remaining “in each other’s lives on a daily basis for 45 years.”
In the midst of running both businesses, AIDS cast its shadow on Provincetown, and Alan began attending regular meetings with Alice Foley, William Scott, and Rose & Crown Guest House owner Preston Babbit. They created the Provincetown AIDS Support Group (PASG), now the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod.
“People volunteered from all over to come and help, and we would sit with people who were sick, we would sit with people who were dying, we would bring meals, take care of them as best we could,” Alan told the Provincetown History Preservation Project in 2009.
He added, “We were one of the first groups to be taking care of AISA patients, and they got wonderful care, so people started coming to Provincetown in order to live out their lives if they were sick; to get care, because of the acceptance, which they wouldn’t get where they were living.”
Alan was the last surviving founder of PASG.
He retired in 2017 and found joy in later life, said Gregg, in the Provincetown recovery community as well as in music — he was the pianist with the quintet Take Five, playing gigs all over the Cape, sang with the Outer Cape Chorale, and, until his death, was the beloved organist at the Christian Union Church in North Truro, where he was also a deacon.
“He was a man of not many words,” said Gregg. “He used to say, ‘Remember in life, restraint of pen and tongue.’ And he was right.”
In 2024, Alan moved to an East End apartment on the bay. While living there, Gregg recalled, “he said to me, ‘I live in paradise. I’ve never been happier.’ How many people can say that at 80?”
Alan is survived by his niece Judy Girouard and husband Mark of Westminster; niece Christy Kimball and husband Jason of Westminster; nephew Michael Wagg of Leominster; nephew Andrew Wagg of North Adams; and by Gregg Russo, his dear friend of 45 years, and Gregg’s husband, Scott. He was predeceased by his brother, Edwin.
Details of a memorial service will be announced.
