Renovating an ugly duckling: the story of Meadow Glen of Richmond

Nursing Homes, Sept, 2004 by Richard McClellan

A nursing station was located in the middle of each of the two resident wings, providing a good, strategic location for that most-needed purpose, whether for a nursing home, as this property felt like, or--with a big stretch of the imagination--an assisted living residence.

Now I knew why this property had only one resident occupant at the time and why no one had wanted to put the owner out of his misery. "It's just too challenging," was, I'm sure, the opinion of many who had toured this facility. Actually, I was thinking pretty much the same thing as we finished the initial tour. All I had to do to make all this work was to add ample sums of money and a business plan that worked.

As I was shown other properties, though, I just could not forget the great setting of this property, the wonderful established neighborhood around it, the potential. Yes, but ... how?

Taking our design and construction team on a follow-up tour a few days later, we started to flesh out the great possibilities for this facility to match its excellent location. However, since we are not in the museum business, renovation had to be done within the context of market demands. What impact would the upgrade have on value? Just how much would it cost to achieve the vision? And the ultimate question: Could we afford it?

With the aid of our helpful lender, Community Bank of Northern Virginia, I decided to move ahead cautiously. My initially planned renovation program was upgraded by a factor of two during the first several weeks of our study, as we became more comfortable with the property and its unique location and park-like setting. We concluded that the surrounding West End community demanded the highest quality assisted living residence and, importantly, would financially support the needed upgrades.

The Renovation

First, the exterior: The property needed an almost completely new landscape package, including trees, shrubs, new sod, and a sprinkler system. We added partial roof gables on each wing to break the long roof lines, a colonial cupola on top of the center of the building lobby, shutters on the windows, and two additional windows at the end of each wing. These windows improved the exterior facade and added more window space and natural light to the eight units affected. We took down the existing inexpensive-looking exterior lights and replaced them with fixtures more in keeping with the overall upgrading we did on the interior.

Inside, our interior designer--my wife Barb, as it happens, president of Bibelot Interiors--went through much of the building, including the resident suites, with new carpet; a darker, more attractive shade of green (quite similar to our first Meadow Glen of Leesburg [Leesburg, Virgina]--see Design Center, October 2002, p. 45). The 2' X 4' acoustic ceiling tile was replaced with attractive 2' X 2' architectural-style tile, new lighting replaced the fluorescent lights, and new wall sconces were added to the corridor walls. The walls were painted throughout, except in common areas like the dining rooms, where wallcoverings were used, as well.