St. Andrews Village is celebrating its 20th year serving the elders of the Boothbay region. The Boothbay Register caught up with a few of the Village’s key players during its inception, construction and first years. Peggy Pinkham was chief executive officer and president of St. Andrews Hospital when the idea was conceived and concept design and construction began. She was with the Village until 2008, also as chief nursing officer for several years.

The facilities sit on about 60 acres of land and (were) donated by the Emery family. The main building, the Inn, has four different levels of care: Independent apartments, assisted living, the memory loss unit, Safe Havens, and long-term care in the Gregory Wing which was originally in the St. Andrews Hospital – now the Urgent Care Center – on the second floor. The Zimmerli Pavilion – a center for occupational, physical and speech therapies – was added in 2016.

Said Pinkham, “Some of the best memories were working with good people who were proud of the work we did and who were part of a team deeply involved in the work. It was a great experience for me … Watching people move from the challenges of giving up a home and making them feel welcome. The whole process of the construction, the planning, the interior design work was fabulous.”

Pinkham said the process of designing, breaking ground and opening the facility was long and grueling, but a positive, fulfilling experience. The teams analyzed the area, studied demographics and toured several facilities to envision what the Village might look like and the feasibility of the project’s scope. “It was a great community project. We had wonderful support from the town manager at that time. We built steps for the infrastructure based on what the town's steps were, we worked with the post office so we could have post office boxes. It was a real community project in many ways.”

Former Marketing Director Liz Hall worked on the project for five years – “just in time for the Village to open and my daughter, Emma to be born. My ‛Village People’ were so sweet and threw me a baby shower!” Hall came from a background in real estate development of hotels which she said gave her the construction and development skills needed to keep the project participants and community informed with each other.

“This project was remarkable for many reasons, but it was to be the first of its kind in Maine. There were retirement communities already but none had the full continuum of care … At the time, people would move away to be closer to family. This project gave people the chance to stay.”

Hall said a few road blocks held up the project a year or two, but the teams continued the fight. Successful conversations with concerned community members eventually gained their vocal support.

“… This incredible group knew that the Village would be a great project for the hospital's future while allowing community members and retirees to be able to stay in the community they so love.”

Hall said they needed a way to show how special the property was after the land was abandoned from a previous attempt at development. She hired a landscaper to clear a path to where the Inn stands now. Then, she and volunteer Patty Calhoun, now a Village resident, lugged a wooden table and chairs up to where the Inn’s dining room would be.

“We set it for dinner with beautiful linens, china and crystal and decorated it with candles and flowers. We put up signs guiding people to the spot (where) they found a surprise with a stunning view far across the treetops from what would be the Inn's location. My hope was that this would give people an idea of how truly lovely the setting would be.”

Former St. Andrews Hospital Director of Facilities Ron Vachon said it did. Vachon started at the Village in 1999, just after the visioning process, and oversaw construction of all the new homes and facilities. He became involved in many of the engineering aspects and even the sales part of the project, and worked for 15 years as director of facilities at the Village.

“I met with a lot of the buyers of the cottages with Liz Hall … We did all the presentations to all the potential residents. I saw the project all the way through construction,” said Vachon. “It was quite a privilege actually to work on a project like that.”

Vachon has worked in facility management for hospitals all his life and he said among all the projects he has done – mostly renovations and additions – none of them were quite like guiding the Village project. “St. Andrews was quite a campus and to see something come out of the ground like that was something. To make a really nice wooded area like that into what it is today was a huge satisfaction.”

Rose Huntington began working at the hospital in 1991, has held many different titles, continues as patient accounts manager for the Village and has been there since before day one.

“I was picked to be at the Village as it was opening,” said Huntington. “I remember the day when they moved all the residents from the hospital over there. It was so exciting to have this whole new facility. For the first couple months, it was challenging to ramp up (but) it was an exciting thing to happen.”

Huntington said moving the Gregory Wing to the Village was especially important because having a nursing home on the second floor of the hospital was very tight quarters. The move opened up the Village to be much more like a true home with lots of space. “It was a great opportunity to have a facility where we could provide so much care at many different levels to people.”

Current Administrative and Marketing Manager Bob Drury has worked at the Village for over five years and considers his work to be much more than just a job. “The residents are an extended family to me. They are very supportive of what my coworkers and I do every day to make the Village a fun, engaging and safe place they call home.”

Drury and his wife Carole moved from Virginia to the Boothbay region in 2000, the year the facility opened. New to the area, the couple would often drive up Emery Lane to watch construction. Working at the Village now is surreal.

Said Drury, “I see the Village only getting better in the next 20 years, with new offerings and services for the baby boomer generation and others. Whatever is in store, one thing is certain, the sense of community you feel here will always remain deep-rooted.”