'It was bittersweet': This historic Peoria senior living facility has been sold

The former owners of one of Peoria's most fabled homes are speaking out about the sale of the property last November, looking back at their time spent both working and living at the place they called a "home away from home" for many.

Julee Whitman, former executive director of the Patrician Home, said that her father, Edwin Flener, sold the home at 1511 North Bigelow Street in November 2023 to America Senior Living. The new owners will rename the facility Liberty Estate Senior Living, moving toward a focus on independent living for seniors.

Whitman said that due to her age and the age of Flener, the 92-year-old husband of the home's former namesake Patricia, they decided to get out when they could.

"It was both time for us to retire," Whitman said.

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Patricia and Edwin bought the home in 1980 and renamed it after the former, utilizing the historic grounds formerly home to prominent Peorians like Frederick H. Avery and Paul Palmer as a senior-living facility.

Whitman had been executive director for 35 years, following in the footsteps of her mother as someone who worked to make the facility as good as it could be for those in the twilight of their lives.

"It was for people who didn't need to go to a nursing home but couldn't live by themselves," Whitman said. "It was a friendly, family-oriented type of facility. We had people there and their families came in and it was just a family home."

'Like a home away from home'

Jacob Clifton, Flener's nephew and Whitman's cousin, had always been around the facility even when he was a child and took on a role as an employee shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. He even lived in the downstairs apartment when he was working there, getting a closer look at the place that his mother would take him to as a young boy.

As he learned the ins and outs of day-to-day operations at the home, he discovered that the people living there became much more than just their residents – they became almost like a part of the family.

"We incorporated the residents in all of our family gatherings (and) Christmas holidays," Clifton said. "We all became one big family there. It was like a home away from home. It wasn't like a normal assisted living facility."

Even after the sale, the current owners did allow Clifton to remain on site for a few months before he took a job with the Tazewell County Resource Centers doing direct support work. The sale is bittersweet for him, looking back on all that has happened there to help people.

"It was bittersweet to see the doors close," Clifton said. "I grew up there with my cousins and my family, then started working there. I put in a lot of time and hours there."

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A new chapter

The new owners have put more of an emphasis on independent living with Liberty Estate, a change from the kind of assisted living emphasis that Whitman and her parents had in their tenure. Clifton confirmed that his cousin and his uncle have essentially retired from the business, ruling out any kind of new venture into assisted living that would pick up on their legacy.

"It's the end of a legacy," Clifton said.

Larry Mikell, co-founder and principal director of America Senior Living, has made clear he doesn't want to erase everything that Whitman, Clifton and their family have built over the course of 40-plus years. Rather, his goal is to enhance what they do and make it work better. That includes things like a new partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs and more persistent promotion of the many amenities that Liberty Estate provides.

"We want to protect the legacy that they have," Mikell said. "We know that there's three, maybe four chapters to this estate (and) we would probably bring that fourth or fifth chapter. In the spirit of serving seniors for 40-plus years, we plan on taking that torch even further."

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This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Historic Peoria senior living home sold to new owners