Shard Villa

Shard Villa.

photo by Don Shall

see his awesome photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/donshall/

This was a place I toured when I first started my long term care state job. It has an amazing feel to me. Murals of Greek gods on the walls, elegant woodwork, antiques, views and gardens.Getting to know some of the staff, they are wonderful and caring with Deb and Pam at the helm. My office mates have had relatives and caregivers in their family who went there.It had an incredible feeling to it as I went through the old mansion. When I heard last fall the board was threatening to close this story came to me after I looked more into who Columbus Smith was. He really was a lawyer who spent many many years in a complicated estate fight in England. He went back and forth many times. Then he built Shard Villa with the proceeds. After the tragic death of their children, he and his wife turned to elder care and shared their house.It must have been quiet and lonely before the elders came. I worried what would happen if there were no more elders there again.The lawyers will be testing the willed wishes of the Smith's in Probate court. Stay tuned!

Shard Villa
by Mary Gerdt

Sometimes I wonder how a human life can span a short time and still have ripple effects across the future times.
How a bump or an interruption or a simple decision can take us in a new direction, sometimes unaware of where we are going and perhaps oblivious that the turn took us somewhere, anywhere at all.
And how we can feel so connected to a person’s purpose that we feel we know the founder of the purpose. That is how heroes are made.

Columbus Smith is my hero. A man long gone but the more I read, (very little is readily available to me), the more I feel a kindred spirit so to speak.
He advocated for people’s property which we did for ourselves. He was more successful, perhaps? Or did he lose a great deal as well in the process?
We turned gray too with a long drawn out court case. Did he deal with liars and thieves, too?
Was he better versed in law? A better advocate?

But now, nearly a hundred years since he walked about the earth, the board members at his famous mansion are about to displace 15 residents who had a promise and a vision they would die here, in the mansion. That is as Columbus and his wife wanted. They were pioneers of long term care before Medicare, before LTC was a buzz word. Before corporations created facilities to invest in healthcare. When his forward thinking vision was really a simple prescription. A country setting, a castle like home and fresh foods, fresh air and a promise of perpetuity which settled the minds of residents.
How could I imagine they feel?
I suppose a bit like my father who felt displaced from his home when entering an elder apartment.
Unlike my father, many probably chose to live here. Indeed I had hoped if ever given the chance to live there I might have chosen Shard Villa. As much for the gardens, views and elegance as anything. But also for the caring staff and feeling of permanence.
No lawyer has managed to loosen the grips of Columbus Smith’s legacy.
Until now.
Will they be successful at their argument with probate court? This couple who lost their children, grief stricken and hoping perhaps through philanthropy, that they would recoup some of their profound losses by giving to the countless elders who have found sanctuary in this mansion.
Do the ghosts smile a little now when someone eats a nice meal, gets a back rub, laughs or has their hand held as they die, knowing this was the legacy they left?
Will the ghosts wonder when the elders all are moved out, tears in their eyes as they pack their little bags of clothes and have to adjust to a new home. How permanent could that feel?
Will the ghosts wail and mourn that the legal work that turned Smith’s hair white were used against what he thought would be a permanent endowment?
Will the ghosts just recede into the woodwork and give up the fight that gave them a home too?
Will Columbus Smith feel the pain of the displaced and be powerless to even throw a glass against the wall?
Or is the broken glass story a premonition?
The shattered shards of crystal elusive to the listener. The sound of broken glass echoing in the home and when you look you cannot find the broken pieces.
Only a warning that the crystal is a fragile piece and makes a terrible racket when broken.
Like a fragile crystal, Shard Villa will soon be in pieces and all we will hear is the crashing of a crystal goblet. When we look for the pieces, the people who lived here, they, like the elusive haunting broken glass will be gone.