Living Well Lodges recently opened its third assisted living facility, Crane’s View Lodge at 1601 Hooks St. in Clermont.

 

Posted: Tuesday, August 5, 2014 6:00 am

 

Austin Fuller | Staff Writeraustin.fuller@dailycommercial.com | 0 comments

 

Living Well Lodges’ first assisted living and memory care facility, Osprey Lodge, opened only two years ago this October in Tavares. They opened a second assisted living facility in Stuart about four weeks ago, owner Tom Hofmeister said Friday.

 

“Our goal is to change the industry. Our goal is that assisted living is something that is wanted and yearned for by our elders — not something that is the last stepping stone to death,” Hofmeister said.  With Dave Croson, Hofmeister started and owns Living Well Lodges, the Mount Dora umbrella company that creates the concepts and ideas. The two have ownership in all three of the individual lodges. Hofmeister said the company’s goal is to expand throughout the United States and he is looking at a few sites in Florida.

 

“I wanted to start in Florida to establish ourselves so that I knew the team was well gelled and well working before we expanded into the United States,” he said.

 

The new five-story Clermont facility has approximately 76 assisted-living rooms and 46 memory-care rooms, Hofmeister said. It has 35 to 40 full- and part-time employees.

 

“We have a really exciting amount of reservations moving into the building immediately,” Hofmeister said, adding it usually takes a year and a half to fill up.

 

He said they have 90 to 100 employees at Osprey Lodge at full operation and he expects the Clermont facility will be similar.

 

“It grows with the amount of people who move in,” Hofmeister said.

 

Osprey Lodge has an art room, a community room, a dog visitation room for the lodge dog and a large screened porch area for events. The Clermont location has those and new spaces including a small store, a card playing room, a room to play pool and watch television as well as a fifth-floor viewing room.

At Osprey Lodge in Tavares, there has been a high school art show, the fire department has come to teach fire safety, and Mount Dora’s Christian Home and Bible School has also worked on plays there.

“The whole place is designed to cater to events and community. It’s designed to just really welcome people,” Hofmeister said.

 

He said “the approach is that your first conception should be that it’s homier.”

 

“We start to discover what the real heart of the community is,” Hofmeister said. “Why do people live here?”

James Hitt, Clermont’s economic development director, says it helps the city economically because people come to visit residents and shop in the city.

 

South Lake Chamber of Commerce President Ray San Fratello agreed.  “They’ll come into town and they’ll say, ‘Oh, we’re gonna be here for a couple days, we’re seeing grandma, or mom, or dad, where’s a nice restaurant we can go to and maybe even take them with us? We want to buy flowers to bring to them,’” San Fratello said. “That retail business will generate off of some of the traffic that’s being provided by all these facilities that have opened up in the past 10 years or so.”

 

Hitt also noted the economic boost from new employees, saying that even if they did not live in the city they would shop or go to lunch there.

 

San Fratello said this will be the fourth large assisted living facility in the Clermont area, in addition to a long term and rehabilitative care center, and an independent living facility that is not yet open. He also noted there is a small assisted living facility in Minneola and another in Groveland.

“We apparently have this niche where we’re providing services to folks that are living in the area that are making it very convenient for them to find a place to live as they get a little older and maybe a little bit more infirmed,” he said.

 

Robert Chandler IV, the director of Lake County’s Economic Development and Tourism Department, said the expansions mean the companies have found a good niche, markets with demand, have a good business plan, and a good management and ownership team.

 

“From the growth they’ve had so far, we would expect nothing more than for them to continue on that growth pattern as long as they can continue to find those markets where there is that need,” he said.