Masonic Homes Citrus Heights Health Center, Covina, California
Masonic Homes for Children in Covina, Calif., started as an orphanage in 1916 on a 33-acre retired citrus ranch. Seventy-one years later, in 1987, the campus welcomed its first senior residents to live alongside children awaiting placement in foster homes. Then, in 2009, the children’s home program was concluded as the Covina campus evolved to serve seniors exclusively, housing 56 independent living and assisted living units, primarily for the Mason community but open to others as well.
Less than a decade later, Masonic Homes of California recognized the need to evolve again as demand for skilled nursing services grew in the area.
“The Covina area is under-bedded in the skilled nursing arena and level of care,” says Terry Quigley, CEO of Masonic Homes of California (Union City, Calif.). “As an industry, we’re not only not building new skilled nursing buildings, but we’re losing beds. Communities are downsizing and eliminating their skilled buildings.”
Masonic Homes of California, which operates two senior living campuses in the state, saw the need for higher care services, including skilled nursing, on its Covina campus as well. In the past, some residents had to be relocated to other communities when their care needs evolved, with some being separated from their spouses in Covina’s independent living or assisted living units when they moved, “which is the worst possible outcome,” Quigley says. “Everybody was getting great care wherever they were, but it wasn’t in a manner in which we were supporting their spiritual and emotional wellness.”
To address the issue, the organization decided to expand its Covina campus and care services by building a 2-story, 32-bed skilled nursing community. The Citrus Heights Health Center was completed in late 2023 and began welcoming residents in April 2024, beginning with 10 who had been relocated, reuniting them with their spouses and friends at Covina.
“The intent of the project was to keep those residents ‘home’ instead of transferring them away,” Quigley says. “This change was made to better serve our residents and future residents.”
Delivering a skilled nursing addition
With the addition, Masonic Homes’ Covina campus now provides independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing. The Citrus Heights Health Center itself houses three levels of care: long-term skilled nursing, skilled nursing with memory care, and short-term skilled nursing and rehabilitation. “By offering short-term care, we are able to provide high quality care to more members of the Covina community, in addition to the Masons we serve,” Quigley says.
A top priority on the project was to cohesively integrate the new skilled nursing center with the rest of the existing campus through placement and positioning of the addition as well as the design, Quigley says. The Citrus Heights addition was built on green space and a former paved barbecue patio. The project team, including SmithGroup (San Francisco), the architect and interior design firm on the project, chose to orient the building in an L shape that opens catty-corner to three buildings housing independent living and assisted living units. The set up completes a square in one corner of the Covina campus, with the buildings all within a 10-minute walk of each other.
Within that square and inside the “L,” the different care neighborhoods are connected by a new sensory garden, including a secure garden space accessible to memory care residents. The shared sensory garden, along with new landscaped pathways, are designed and positioned to create seamless connections between Citrus Heights and the other care neighborhoods. “Even if they’re not on their way to skilled nursing, we want people to wander those areas and think of it as just the campus, same as they would wandering by a rose garden elsewhere on the site,” Quigley says.
Mid-century modern architecture inspiration
Turning to the building’s architecture, the project team took inspiration from the mid-century-modern architecture featured throughout the campus, including a community center added to the campus in the late-1960s. Matthew Smith, associate and architect at SmithGroup, says four materials prominent in existing buildings are echoed in the Citrus Heights addition, including concrete masonry unit (CMU) walls, stucco finishes, glass, and wood, but “arranged in a modern way.”
On the exterior, for example, deep overhangs and stucco and CMU materials maintain the architectural language found on nearby buildings, while warm wood-clad volumes with large operable windows pop out from the façade, providing seating areas within the resident rooms and connections to the outdoors. Finished wood also is featured in the bracing and framework of an oversized canopy that leads to a 2-story floor-to-ceiling-glass front entrance.
“The new building sits in concert with adjacent buildings with the massing and style designed to complement the original campus,” Smith says.
Inside, the textures and fenestration of the materials palette are similarly influenced by the mid-century aesthetic of concrete block, wood paneling, and decorative screens. For example, the main stairwell off the front entrance is framed in wood panels on the walls and in ceiling baffles. Additionally, Masonic symbols are infused in tile and screen patterns, including a lattice-like screen that serves as a visual barrier between the dining room and living room, while the Masonic Homes seal is incorporated into the flooring.
Household model emphasizing resident connections
The skilled nursing community features a household model to support residents’ engagement and socialization needs. “The household model is a person-centered approach, where residents have a significant say in their daily lives, their care, and their living environment,” Smith says.
Common areas, including a café, dining room, and lounge, are housed at the center of each floor where the wings of the L-shaped building join at a 90-degree angle, while the private resident rooms are arranged down the corridors. Each floor houses 16 residential units with skilled nursing with memory care on the first floor and short-term rehabilitation, and long-term skilled nursing units, as well as a large physical therapy suite on the second floor. Additionally, one unit on each floor is designated for double occupancy for couples.
Entryways to the neighborhoods feature automatic glass doors, offering transparency by allowing residents and visitors to see through to the common areas and outside spaces, including the memory garden on the first floor and an open balcony overlooking the garden on the second floor.
To ensure staff have clear sight lines to residents, a staff care hub is positioned on the first floor to have full views of the dining and living rooms as well as down both residential corridors. On the second floor, the common area is adjacent to the large therapy suite, which offers occupational, physical, and speech therapy services.
“Spaces like the open living and dining rooms provide opportunities for residents to develop strong relationships and social connections, which help to mitigate the negative health impacts of isolation that often occur in traditional skilled nursing facilities,” Smith says.
Uniting the community
As the Citrus Heights Health Center continues to welcome new residents, Quigley says the goal is to ensure that all residents feel part of the same Covina Campus. She cites as a symbol of that unity a resident who lives in independent living while her husband lives in skilled nursing.
“They have lunch together every day; they go and sit in the garden; they’re often watching a movie together, holding hands,” she says. “Even if they’re not sharing the same living space because their needs aren’t the same, they are sharing their days. They’re part of the same community.”
Masonic Homes Citrus Heights Health Center project details
Location: Covina, Calif.
Completion date: 2023
Owner: Masonic Homes of California
Total building area: 39,000 sq. ft.
Total construction cost: $24 million
Cost/sq. ft.: $625
Architect: SmithGroup
Interior designer: SmithGroup
General contractor: Mason Builders
Engineer: Psomas (civil engineer), Forell/Elsesser (structural engineer), Glumac (building systems engineer)
Construction manager: Cambridge CM
Landscape architect: Creo
Building enclosure consultant: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger
Acoustic consultant: Shen Milsom & Wilke
Signage consultant: Propp & Guerin
Builder: Mason Builders
Carpet/flooring: Shaw, Patcraft, DalTile, Mirage, Jetrock, Wausau
Ceiling/wall systems: Armstrong
Doors/locks/hardware: Allegion
Fabric/textiles: Luna Textiles, Joseph Noble, Arc Com, Design Tex, Bernhardt, Momentum Textiles, Knoll Textiles, Carnegie Textiles
Furniture—seating/casegoods: Fairfield, Charter Furniture, Coalesse, Knowlton Brothers, Hon, Century, Human Scale, Sandler Seating, KI, Room & Board, Hickory Chair, Hekman, Cabot Wren
Handrails/wall guards: InPro,
Lighting: Lumetta, V2
Surfaces—solid/other: Wilsonart, Nevamar, Formica, 3Form
Wallcoverings: Spectrim Building Products, Carnegie Fabrics
Glazed Decorative Metal Railing: HDI Railing Systems
Project details are provided by the design team and not vetted by Environments for Aging.
Robert McCune is senior editor of Environments for Aging magazine and can be reached at [email protected].
