The Tribune

Mario Carey still remembers the first time he met Prince Lewis. He was a curly-headed child, not quite six years old, holding a book nearly as big as he was.

“He was reading the encyclopedia,” said Mr Carey. “Said he didn’t have TV or a computer, but he was proud of that encyclopedia and he carried it everywhere.”

Over the next two decades, Prince became the third child, the adopted son in a household brimming with activity, a home where his mother worked while his aunt worked at the company where Mr Carey was employed as a real estate broker, and where he would later become a director before striking out on his own in 2008, opening MCR.

Wherever the Careys went, Prince went with them. “He just became part of the family, like an adopted son,” said Mr Carey.

This week, the father-son-like relationship took another leap when the young man who Mr Carey taught and helped through school became the newest BREA-licensed estate agent in the growing real estate firm.

“It’s like coming full circle,” said Mr Carey. “Prince is someone I have known since he was a child. I was impressed from the time I met him and he’s never let me down. When he was little, we took him with us to a zoo in Canada and he knew the names of every animal, what they ate, how they slept.He was at the table for every birthday, Christmas, family dinner.”

When he showed promise, Mr Carey insisted that he apply for scholarships before enrolling in the government high school he planned to attend.

It paid off. He was offered scholarships at Lyford Cay International School (LCIS) and St Augustine’s College. He chose SAC, partly because it went through Grade 12, which LCIS did not at the time, and graduated from there before heading off to Arcadia in Nova Scotia, Canada, where he earned a degree in Biology. During college summers, he worked for Mr Carey.

“Mr Carey has always been there for me,” said Mr Lewis. “He’s been a constant in my life. He helped me get my first job, working at a tennis camp at the Nassau Beach Hotel.

“I was 14 and earning $85 a week, which I thought was so much money. He warned me to save and not spend it all. The advice I’ve gotten from him over the years, the experience I’ve gained just from being around him, it’s amazing.”

One of those experiences stands out.

“He used to pick me up from high school and one day he asked me about tests. I told him I had a spelling test the next day. He asked for the spelling sheet and started to ask me to spell the words. Next thing I knew he pulled over to the side of the road and quizzed me until I got every word right, even though I knew he had a busy day,” Mr Lewis added.

Mr Carey said he never thought of Prince, who was still on good terms with his own father, who had gone back to Jamaica, as anything other than another member of the family.

Mr Carey, whose son, Cole, was diagnosed with Asperger’s, the highest functioning form of autism, was dividing his time between growing the autism support organisation R.E.A.C.H., raising his own family and building his reputation in real estate. By the time Prince Lewis was 17, he was working in one capacity or another during summers in a real estate office.

Now, after jobs from filing to cold calling on delinquent rental accounts for another firm, Mr Lewis is working on sales and appraisals, following in the footsteps of the man who mentored him for nearly 20 years.

“I learned from the best,” he says. “The best in real estate and the best friend a kid could ask for.”