08/26/2026
Ron and I remain in the process of designing, and eventually building, our second assisted living home. It is hard work. It is exciting and rewarding, and if we’re being completely transparent, there are aspects of it that are scary, too.
Owning and operating a small business anywhere, including here in Maine, is no easy task. I don’t say that looking for a pat on the back, but rather to bring some awareness to what goes into creating, growing and sustaining something meaningful within a community. There is the vision and the exciting part of dreaming about what comes next, but behind all of that is the very real responsibility of managing a business, supporting a growing team, navigating rising costs, meeting regulatory requirements and making decisions every day that affect the people who depend on us.
It is imperative to Ron and I that we compensate our employees as well as we possibly can and continue creating opportunities for them as we grow. It is vital that The Heron House remains safe, intentional, clean, welcoming and truly feels like home. We have an enormous responsibility to meet the requirements of the State of Maine, OSHA and all of the other standards that come with operating a residential care assisted living home, and we take that responsibility seriously.
But beyond regulations and business operations, there is something much simpler at the center of all of this: we genuinely love what we do.
We love this home. We love the people who live here. We love getting to know their families. We love dreaming up better ways to care for people, creating beautiful spaces for them to live and finding ways to make the later chapters of someone’s life feel meaningful, comfortable and dignified.
And we love watching our team believe in that vision alongside us.
The Heron House could never have grown into what it is today because of Ron and I alone. Our team has supported our ideas, adapted as we have grown, worked through challenges with us and helped turn so many of our visions into reality. They are the people providing the hands-on care, cooking the meals, planning the activities, maintaining our home, managing medications, supporting families, keeping things organized and doing the hundreds of little things every day that make this house a home. We are incredibly appreciative of them.
As we work toward creating our next space, this time a secured memory care home, we will remain every bit as invested in The Heron House. Growth for us has never meant moving on from what we built. It means building upon it.
Maine needs more small, private residential care homes where seniors and their families have meaningful choices about how and where they spend the later years of their lives. We believe deeply in the value of smaller homes, familiar faces, individualized care and environments where people can continue to live rather than simply be cared for.
Ron and I, alongside our team, are incredibly motivated to be part of creating and maintaining those spaces in our community.
So we will keep working. We will keep learning. We will keep adjusting when something can be better. We will keep investing in our people, our homes and our housemates. And we will keep taking some risks along the way because we believe that what we are building is worth it.
It isn’t always easy, but we never expected it to be.
We are incredibly grateful to our team for continuing to grow alongside us, to our housemate families for trusting us with the people they love most, and to our community for continuing to support this little Maine business and the much bigger vision behind it.
We’re in it for the long haul, and thankfully, so is our team.
These are some of the people who have believed in what Ron and I are building, helped us navigate the hard parts, celebrated the exciting parts and continued to grow right alongside us. Behind every title and every responsibility is a whole person with a family, a life, things they love and people they love. I think that’s worth sharing because so much of what makes The Heron House special comes from the people who bring their own hearts, personalities, experiences and lives through our doors each day.
