Our History

Hearthstone Alzheimer Care was founded in 1992 by Joan Hyde and John Zeisel. Our mission from the very beginning was "To Create Residential Treatment Environments Where People with Alzheimer's and Related Disorders Can Flourish."

Many wonderful people helped and inspired us along the way: First of all, our families, especially Jacqueline and Derwin, who supported us through the intense start-up period, brought their perspectives to the enterprise, and were patient during our many long work weeks over the years. We owe a great debt of thanks to Nancy Mace, who created our unique training program, helped define our humanistic method of interacting with people with dementia when that was a novel approach, to the first group of staff (including Nancy Reed, Carleen Brown and Kathy Monte), to Chuck Jackson, who rebuilt a player piano for us, to the owners of Golden Pond Resident Care Center, who took a chance on our program and sealed our first deal with nothing more than a handshake, to Joe Schmidt who has been our corporate attorney, friend and advisor since the beginning, to Bruce Tiedemann, who served as our accountant and advisor from day one, to David MacFadyen, who insisted on both sound business principles and a team approach, to Janet Pozen, who developed our family program, to Bill Keane, who continuously reinvigorated our sense of mission, and most of all to Melvin Shapiro, the angel who loaned us the start-up capital for what, back in 1992, was a very radical idea: Assisted Living for people with dementia.

Throughout our nine-year history we have been fortunate to have had hundreds of people who have shared the Hearthstone vision and helped it grow organically. Some of them are featured in the Hearthstone Team section.

Over the nine years of Hearthstone's history we have developed seven successful Hearthstone Residences, which we operate in conjunction with four different host groups. Three of our oldest programs have come up for contract renewal and all have been renewed. In addition, we explored, did feasibility studies, negotiated, even engaged in start-up activities on a number of other projects, which, for a variety of reasons did not go forward.

In 1999 we undertook a retreat, which gathered together staff from throughout the company, to articulate our core values and chart our vision for the future. From that retreat we developed "The Hearthstone Way" and "Managing the Hearthstone Way." Under the constant guidance of Sue Blackler, these documents set forth the unique Hearthstone approach. These two volumes function as both training manuals and "policies and procedures" while embodying the spirit of continuous growth and improvement that exemplifies the Hearthstone spirit of improving the quality of life for all who are a part of our extended family.