Twelve Oaks Senior Living hosted a grand re-opening on Sunday. Visitors were invited to learn of the additional housing that has been renovated and opened since December.
By Julie BUTCHER
Twelve Oaks Lodge hosted a festive “grand re-opening” on May 20 with a Sunday afternoon gathering and tour of the facilities and grounds of the new Twelve Oaks Senior Living, still located on its namesake 4.5 oak-covered acres at 2820 Sycamore Ave. in La Crescenta.
“We’re excited for the community to see everything we’ve done to improve the property and get ready to welcome more new residents,” Northstar Senior Living’s Regional VP of Operations John Peters said as he welcomed guests to the event. “Have you seen the roses? There’s a resident here; he’s been here since we re-opened in April. Before he retired, Victor spent decades working as a landscape designer and architect. He’s been working on the roses and we think he has saved them. They were looking pretty shabby. It gives him such joy and purpose to help in the gardens living here. We don’t put him to work and, in fact, sometimes we have to encourage him to stop working, but the roses look beautiful and he loves the work.”
Northstar Senior Living operates Twelve Oaks now as Twelve Oaks Senior Living, with ownership and governance controlled by the volunteer Twelve Oaks Foundation board of directors: Gabriel Mendham, Fernando Aenlle-Rocha, Cindy Kenyon, Eric Amend, Karen Gee McAuley, and Rose Chan Loui.
Rose Chan Loui is one of several activists instrumental in the fight to keep Twelve Oaks in the community. She explained the significance of the day’s celebration.
“It’s such a treasure for our community. We could never, would never get this property back if we lost it to a developer,” Chan Loui said. “All the work we did to save it for this community, for generations and generations, was a labor of love. Plus, it was important for our daughters to get to see us stand together and fight.”
The future of the Twelve Oaks property was uncertain for a number of years when, after 10 years under management by another company, the home was closed in October 2013. National Charity League (NCL) Glendale regained control in August 2015, and the Twelve Oaks Foundation was formed with independent board members.
“These folks had no idea they’d run into a charity board filled with lawyers,” Chan Loui adds with a kind laugh. “Our girls spent a lot of time here as ‘Ticktockers’ doing their service work with NCL. Then they came with us to the peaceful protests in 2013. Now, as they’re growing up, they know that we stood up and fought for something that’s important for us all. That’s good because sometimes they think all we do is talk on the phone and type on the keyboard.”
NCL is a national non-profit organization aimed at building “mother-daughter relationships in a philanthropic organization committed to community service, leadership development and cultural experiences.” Girls who participate from seventh grade through the end of high school are called “Ticktockers.”
Twelve Oaks Foundation board president Mendham welcomed the guests, introduced members of the board and staff, recognized the pro bono legal team of Fernando Aenlle-Rocha, Nicole Rodger and Earle Miller from White & Case and then summarized “80 years of history in a couple of paragraphs:”
James and Effie Fifield donated Twelve Oaks to the Verdugo Hills Sunshine Society in 1935. The aim of the International Sunshine Society was to “bring sunshine into the hearts and lives of those less fortunate.” The Fifields’ goal was to create “a homelike boarding home for elderly people of culture and refinement who can be made happy by our particular brand of sunshine,” they noted in an early newsletter.
In 1963, the National Charity League (NCL)-Glendale Chapter raised more than $50,000 for a new retirement home. Impressed by the Sunshine Society and Twelve Oaks, the NCL used the funds to build what is now Stern Hall – nine units dedicated to the care of elderly women. The two groups merged to operate the facility through the early 2000s when it was turned over to the Southern California Presbyterian Homes for professional operation.
Southern California Presbyterian Homes rebranded itself as the be.group in 2011. In 2013, it announced the sale of Twelve Oaks to a housing developer and gave the 50 seniors living at Twelve Oaks 60 days notice to move out.
“The entire community and the NCL staged a fight. Sadly, we couldn’t save the residents who were tossed out, but we still wanted to fight to keep the property for what Effie and James Fifield wanted for it,” Mendham wrapped up the abbreviated history. “In 2015 we reached a settlement to return the property to a newly appointed foundation board. Your work – all of your work – has us accepting residents, planning our next stages of renovation, and welcoming you all to see a vibrant Twelve Oaks.”
“We’ve already seen Girl Scout projects including the work on the salon. If you look outside, you’ll see the work of Sandy Gillis of Gillis Landscaping and the Stanford Club of Pasadena who’ve engineered and planted that great new stretch of vegetable garden,” Mendham pointed outside of the doors to the brightly lit dining room. “It’s just the beginning of rebuilding.”
During the tour of the refurbished residence rooms, Xavier Lang (“Victor”) detailed his work with the roses.
“They were in bad shape when I got here, but I gave them all a heap of fertilizer and good, deep watering – none of that psshh, psshh sprinkling back and forth – deep water at their roots, that’s what they needed. And look at them now. Thriving!”
Twelve Oaks Senior Living is open now for up to 60 seniors. Executive Director Sandy Solis can answer questions. She can be reached at (818) 862-0810 or check out the Twelve Oaks website at www.TwelveOaksSeniorLiving.com.
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