Here's a paper of McMullen where the Lehmer polynomial shows up (see Theorem 1.2 there):
http://www.math.harvard.edu/~ctm/papers/home/text/papers/blowup/blowup.pdf
Here's a paper of McMullen where the Lehmer polynomial shows up (see Theorem 1.2 there):
http://www.math.harvard.edu/~ctm/papers/home/text/papers/blowup/blowup.pdf