English Meadows Co-Founders Mike Williams & Steve Orndorff enjoy finding and renovating neglected buildings. English Meadows finds assisted living communities with potential and transforms them into modern, beautiful, and functional spaces. The English Meadows Campus in Crozet, Virginia is a prime example of this passion.
Prior to English Meadows purchasing the old Carter cold storage plant in 2019, it was home to another senior care business, Mountainside Senior Living. These businesses in the heart of downtown Crozet have built a reputation for providing amazing care to senior citizens over the past several decades. Recently, English Meadows completed a comprehensive redesign of the building’s interior.
The Crozet Campus had a lot to offer even before its latest renovation, which began nearly a year ago. The Campus is located in the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains and is surrounded by top-tier restaurants, retail stores and more.
The team at English Meadows prides themselves on going above and beyond, both for its Caregivers and Residents. The senior living community values low turnover and focuses on providing a rewarding and enjoyable workplace for its Team Members.
For those reasons, the design firm focused the renovation and improvements around what would help Residents feel comfortable, safe, and at-home. LMA Senior Living Design, which is led by Williams’ wife Patti, conceptualized the interior renovation to create a sense of community and to foster interaction among Residents.
The interior design plan created more spaces where Residents could gather and chat, including the new bistro area. The spaces were decorated with warm and inviting paint colors, textures and artworks. These functional opportunities to gather are all the more welcome after a year of relative isolation and extreme caution during the pandemic. Patti Williams also hopes that, when it’s safe again, Residents will find them useful for birthday parties, church gatherings, and other special events.
The pandemic, in addition to causing some project delays, influenced how the design team approached the renovation. Increasing the overall health and safety of Residents and staff became a primary component of the project.
Williams knew that with regard to flooring, transition strips and rugs can cause falls. Dark colors can look like gaping holes to people with poor vision. The team avoided those elements while also incorporating floor surfaces that were antimicrobial and easily washable. Furniture was likewise selected based not only on its style, but how easy its fabric was to clean.
Finally, Williams’ design aimed to increase accessibility for Residents by widening doorways and spacing furniture to allow wheelchairs to pass through easily. Resident bathrooms were equipped with new safety features, too.
An exterior renovation of the building in downtown Crozet is still to come. But English Meadows’ Central Virginia Campus already offers more than 50 renovated, licensed Assisted Living studio apartments & it features their new Lavender Hills Dementia Care Program. Caregivers are available 24/7 to provide the services you or your loved one needs, from medicine management to all meals, laundry, housekeeping, and so much more..
To visit our Campus in-person, get in touch soon! If you’re interested in joining the English Meadows family but aren’t from the Crozet region, you might consider our Campuses in Abingdon, Blacksburg, Manassas, or Washington, D.C. You can learn more about all our Senior Living Campuses on our website or contact us with questions or to schedule a tour. We look forward to seeing you soon!