By Mary O’KEEFE

To say Twelve Oaks Senior Living on Sycamore Avenue has had a rollercoaster history would be an understatement – and the ride continues.

Residents, and their families, have received notification that Twelve Oaks will be closing on Feb. 28, 2025.

“[We are] closing for a complete remodel,” said Denise Gatto, Twelve Oaks executive director, in an interview with CVW. “Everything will be torn down.”

The well-known senior living facility is a unique oasis in the community surrounded by trees and pathways. There is an area with individual rooms and throughout the property small cabin-type residential buildings. All of the buildings will be knocked down and a new facility built from the ground up.

“The City [of Glendale] wants all utilities underground,” Gatto said.

Due to this requirement, and other safety requirements, the buildings need to be demolished rather than simply remodeled.

According to correspondence between Gatto and families and staff, there was a plan several years ago to demolish the older buildings; however, due to the city’s requirements that plan was put on pause.

Gatto insisted this is a positive move forward as organizers want to build to the future. By the time the building is complete the facility will be able to house 120 residents. It currently has a capacity for about 45 residents.

But the residents currently living at the facility, and their families, will have to start looking for a place to live during the construction. Gatto estimated that construction will begin in early 2025 and will take at least two years to complete.

This closure has been handled in a much different manner than the last time Twelve Oaks was to close its doors. Although according to law residents must be given a 60-day notice to move out, Twelve Oaks and its affiliate, Episcopal Communities and Services (ECS), has given residents six months to find a new home. Gatto also stated there is a wait list for many residents who want to return once construction is complete.

In 2013 residents and families at Twelve Oaks got a gut punch of a notice that the facility was for sale and residents had to leave. This sent not only residents but also neighbors into a tailspin as they attempted to find out what would be done with the property. Twelve Oaks, at that time, had been operated by the be.group, formerly Southern California Presbyterian Homes. Rumors quickly spread about the facility being closed and developers coming in to build homes.

CVW extensively covered the potential sale as more and more community organizations joined to save the senior living facility. It was discovered that the be.group did not own the facility but only managed it, and therefore did not have the right to sell the property.

In the 1970s the National Charity League (NCL) of Glendale managed the facility through the Verdugo Hills Sunshine Society, whose name was later changed to Twelve Oaks Foundation (TOF). The charity league helped manage the facility until the late 1990s when Southern California Presbyterian Homes/be.group was brought in to manage it for NCL.

Once the possible sale was announced, NCL took be.group to court in 2015 and the management and control of Twelve Oaks Lodge [senior living] was given back to NCL. Management was then transferred to TOF.

In 2020, TOF entered into an affiliation with the ECS that is headquartered in Monrovia.

“We’re enthusiastic that this union will result in great synergies that allow for the enhancement of the Twelve Oaks community and the creation of more moderately priced housing and service options for seniors in the Glendale and San Gabriel Valley areas,” James Rothrock, president/CEO of EOC stated at the time. “Twelve Oaks and ECS are nonprofit senior living communities, which ensure that surplus resources are reinvested in their campuses.”

The senior living facility has a rich history in Crescenta Valley. The property was originally owned by James and Effie Fifield, who were from Minnesota but spent their winters in Crescenta Valley in a 13-room house surrounded by oak trees on the property where Twelve Oaks stands today. The couple became involved with The International Sunshine Society, a charitable organization. The Fifields started a local chapter in the CV area and dreamed of turning their home into a low-cost living facility for the elderly. When James passed away in 1933, Effie began the process of donating the house and property to the Verdugo Hills Sunshine Society. That was completed in 1935. The cottages on the grounds were built by Sunshine Society volunteers. Later The Sunshine Society merged with the Glendale National Charity League.

The new construction is nothing like what residents and neighbors feared with the mid-2000 proposal. The EOC plans to rebuild Twelve Oaks Senior Living to update the facility and expand the capacity for seniors.

“It is all positive,” Gatto said.