Johnson Home in Norwich to stay open; renovations underway
Jun. 14—NORWICH — The historic Johnson Home residential care home for elderly women, which had been slated to close, will remain open under new ownership.
Large garbage bins were recently parked in front of the three-story home at 100 Town St., where workers are cleaning out old furniture, carpeting and debris. But instead of clearing out the building, they are getting it ready for new residents. The 14-room home for retired women that opened in 1907 is being refurbished.
Manosij Roy, owner and managing partner of the Washington, D.C.-based R&R Care Operations, said he was asked in March by an official at the state Department of Public Health if he would consider adding the Johnson Home to his growing Connecticut portfolio.
He is set to complete a purchase of the Crestwood Manor, a 22-bed residential care home at 90 Broad St., Norwich, in mid-July. Roy said he has formal agreements to purchase both the Johnson Home and Crestwood Manor in Norwich, both including the businesses and the properties.
Roy's plan to take over Johnson Home and Crestwood Manor will need to be approved first by the state Department of Public Health, which issues licenses for residential care homes.
Then the buyer must work with the state Department of Social Services to develop reimbursement rates for care of residents, Jalmar De Dios, spokesman for DSS, said. De Dios said the homes' buyers and sellers work out their own financial transactions.
"The state's involvement is to ensure that the buyer is licensed and has a rate in place so they can get paid for resident care," De Dios said.
Roy owns the Elton, a 100-bed residential care home in Waterbury; Park City, a 50-bed facility in Bridgeport; and Pine Acres, a 60-bed assisted living facility in Providence. While the Johnson Home needs major renovations and upgrades to meet state requirements, he called the Crestwood Manor in Norwich "a turnkey" purchase, with no renovations or changes required.
"The state called me and said, 'this home needs care. It's going to close otherwise,'" Roy said last week. "I was in Norwich looking at Crestwood Manor. I came here. I looked at it, and in five minutes, I said, 'yeah, OK.'"
He started work on the Johnson Home in May, even before completing the ownership transfer from the current nonprofit that owns and runs the Johnson Home. The home has 14 rooms for older women living in the residential care setting. They receive three meals, snacks, laundry, activities and other basic services, transportation to appointments and assistance with medications if needed.
Facing staffing shortages and major renovation costs, the nonprofit board of directors voted last November to close the home. State officials were processing the request for permission to close, and DSS appointed a temporary home administrator, Brian Dicksten, in December.
Several Johnson Home residents have moved to other facilities since the initial announcement that the board planned to close the home. The home was down to three residents when Roy started his renovations and started spreading the word that the home was being revived. Five new residents were planning to move in this week, he said.
Roy estimated his investment in the Johnson Home will top $500,000 by the time he is finished. A state-mandated emergency generator alone will cost $85,000, he said. He ordered 14 sets of furniture ― beds, mattress sets, dressers, tables, lamps and recliners. The second-floor rear storage room, which had been piled to the ceiling with broken furniture and debris, was cleaned out and turned into a rec room. Wall cracks are being repaired and all rooms and hallways are getting new carpet and fresh paint.
An architect provided plans that could increase capacity by dividing the three larger suite rooms, but Roy rejected the idea. The work could damage the historic character of the home, he said.
"This place is historic," Roy said. "The building's bones are good."
For Roy, 47, owning and managing residential care homes is an unusual second career. He immigrated to the United States from India in 2000, moving first to Maine and later to Northern Virginia. He has worked on Wall Street, in banking and accounting and worked for 10 years at IBM. He became a U.S. citizen in 2009.
Several years ago, he told his wife, Sudipa Chakrabarti, who works at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in D.C., he wanted to do something that had more meaning and could help people. A friend's uncle is a physician in nursing home care. Roy had worked on Medicare issues in Maine, but otherwise, the field was completely new to him.
He started looking for opportunities in the Phoenix area but was drawn to New England. Taxes are higher here, but he said reimbursement rates are higher, and he loves the New England climate.
"It feels better here," he said.
Abigail Perez, manager of the Johnson Home, felt that way when she moved with two teenage kids from New York City to Norwich in 2021 and started working third shift at the Johnson Home. She had a bit of culture shock, when she figured she would just navigate by her phone and did not need a car. They live across from Norwich Free Academy, where her kids attend school. She walks the one mile to work.
Perez said she was thrilled that the Johnson Home will stay open and be filled with residents again. She said she was sad when residents started moving out and still visits some former residents now in senior housing or other facilities.
"The Johnson Home is like my home," Perez said.
LaRee Johnson, a residential care assistant, has worked at the Johnson Home for two months. She jokes that she is not related to late 19th century home founder, Maria Johnson, whose portrait hangs on the first-floor living room.
"We're just trying to get things reset," Johnson said. "I read the history of this place. It has a very homey feel, with modern care."
