Glendale senior-care facility set to reopen after prolonged property dispute
Senior-care facility Twelve Oaks Lodge, which closed more than three years ago after a prolonged property dispute, will reopen this spring and provide 4.5 acres of affordable senior housing and assistance to the local community.
However, no specific date has been set for the reopening.
The reopening comes after the be.group, a Glendale-based nonprofit provider of senior living communities, booted about 50 Twelve Oaks residents and closed the facility, claiming then that it was no longer economically viable to maintain.
The Glendale chapter of the National Charity League, which managed Twelve Oaks Lodge for 30 years before handing day-to-day control over to be.group in 2002, filed a lawsuit as an attempt to halt the closure of the facility. They alleged at the time that be.group was trying to sell it for a non-charitable purpose.
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The league and be.group eventually settled in 2015, and ownership of the facility was transferred to the Twelve Oaks Foundation — the nonprofit organization reconstituted from the defunct group that used to own Twelve Oaks Lodge, the Verdugo Hills Sunshine Society.
“The very first decision we had to make was what the lodge was going to offer,” said Rose Chan, secretary on the Twelve Oaks Foundation board and former president of National Charity League Glendale. “Ultimately, we did decide that the greatest need is to provide affordable assisted living ... I think all of us really felt, if we wanted to serve the community in the best way possible, that that’s what we had to try and do.”
Northstar Senior Living — which provides service to more than 30 senior living communities — will now manage Twelve Oaks Lodge and, with the Twelve Oaks Foundation, reopen with a number of structural updates and the addition of an onsite memory care unit.
“There is also a greater need for memory care at this time just because the way the elderly are living longer but they’re having these additional needs,” said Paris Cohen, president of the Twelve Oaks Foundation. “[The memory care unit is] something that was previously not offered and it’s going to be exciting to be able to provide that to our neighbors.”
Twelve Oaks Lodge is located at 2820 Sycamore Ave., Glendale, and is currently accepting reservations. The Twelve Oaks Foundation is encouraging past residents to sign up.
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Jeff Landa, jeff.landa@latimes.com
Twitter: @JeffLanda
