Tyler Stevens grew up in Minnetonka with his mother, Candy Stevens, and his grandparents, Karl and Carolyn Donohue. They were close: His grandfather was his best friend and the best man at his wedding, and his grandmother was like a second mother. When Karl had a stroke and Carolyn was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease about six years ago, Stevens knew he wanted to honor them by building a memory-care community they could be proud to call home.
That plan came to fruition when BeeHive Homes of Excelsior opened in 2014. While Stevens’ grandmother passed away before she had the chance to move in, his grandpa lived there for a year before he passed away in 2015. “I can say during his last year that I got to see him every single day,” Stevens says.
Located across the street from Minnetonka Middle School West, the 30,000-square-foot, one-story building sits on 10 acres of land and includes suites for 45 residents. The community—part of a franchise of 150 BeeHive homes in the U.S.—specializes in housing residents with dementia. The inviting common area feels like any living room, featuring a dining area, a den with a TV and book-lined shelves, a sunroom and an outdoor patio. The staff of 40—which includes Stevens’ mother—has nurses on duty 24/7, two staffers focused solely on coordinating resident activities and one musical therapist.
The philosophy behind the home is that memory loss and aging don’t have to be negative. “My grandpa used to always say that aging is tough, but it doesn’t have to be sad, and that always stuck with me,” Stevens says. “It can still be treated with fun and optimism and faith and all good things.” At BeeHive, residents get outside every day and stay engaged with the hobbies they enjoyed prior to moving in. “That cuts the anxiety down, when someone can move in but they can mimic their life,” Stevens says. “They can move here and continue to thrive.”
Brian Tichy of Excelsior, whose mother Bernice lived at the home for about two years, says she loved playing card games, doing crafts and reading. As a fan of jazz, she also enjoyed regular music therapy. “They didn’t limit her,” Tichy says. “It was more than just movie night and crafts day and those types of things; they had a real hands-on, personal approach.”
The catalyst for Stevens in getting the BeeHive project going came when he was at the hospital for his own son’s birth five years ago. He mistakenly got off the elevator on the third floor, where elderly patients were treated. He was struck by the stark difference in the energy compared to the maternity floor, where he’d noticed music playing, laughter and a general sense of optimism. The third floor was quieter and had a sterile vibe. “It’s almost like the third floor had twice as much gravity,” he says. “It really frustrated me.” Stevens realized he wanted to use his experience in senior care to build a home where music, laughter and the sound of grandkids running up and down the halls were the norm.
Stevens reached out to architect Mike Sharratt of Sharratt Design & Company in Excelsior, and the two worked on the design phase of the project for about a year and a half. Stevens “didn’t want it to be institutional or a high-rise,” Sharratt says. Sharratt also worked on the expansion, which finished this summer and added 17 units and 10,000 square feet to meet popular demand. Sharratt appreciated how Stevens’ concept was a “more humane approach to something that typically has been quite mundane in the way that it’s thought about or executed.”
For Stevens, that approach all comes back to treating aging with a positive attitude. His grandfather often said that your last memories are as important as your first, and the thriving energy at BeeHive reflects this sentiment. “Our approach is to live in the moment and enjoy the things in life you did when you were 30 or 40, and that includes being outside, or ice cream,” Stevens says. “It’s a busy place, and that’s good. Busy is good.”
