In The Press

Brown House Properties owners Sherwood Booker and his wife, Laurie, their daughters Shannon and Lindsey Booker-Burrill and Lindsey’s husband, Chris, were on hand for the event, as were family members, friends and representatives of Delta Ambulance Service. Sherwood Booker explained that Brown House bought the property and 22,000-square-foot building about two years ago. It had been vacant a couple of years after the former Goudreau’s Retirement Inn closed. In the 1940s and ’50s, it had been the Roosevelt Motor Lodge and later the Colonial Manor Nursing Home. “Our family recognized a need within the community for independent senior housing and quickly seized an opportunity to acquire this wonderful building,” Booker said in a speech at the ribbon cutting. “We hit the ground running, repositioning this 47-room nursing home into a 27-unit, independent senior living facility.” Fifteen units have been completed and are mostly occupied, and seven more are under construction in a part of the building closest to College Avenue that is closed off to the finished part. Brown House takes care of plowing, shoveling, sanding and mowing. Booker said the family was mindful of the environment during renovations, reusing quality materials to decrease waste and employing alternative energy solutions. “This summer, Brown House Commons committed to the green initiative,” he said. “We installed a 60-kilowatt solar farm on the south side of the roof which features 180 panels and will produce 73,000 kilowatt hours of clean, renewable electricity annually. The system alone will offset roughly 80,000 pounds of carbon pollution every year. Our company has been so satisfied with our commitment to the green initiative, we are in the process of installing a like-size solar farm at another location.” Laurie Booker said the family is particularly happy about the solar initiative. “We’re very proud of that,” she said. Brown House owns more than 300 rental properties in eight communities including Waterville, Fairfield and Clinton. It also owns Loon Ridge Camps in Belgrade. Sherwood and Laurie Booker founded the company in 1979 when they bought a four-unit building, moved in themselves and brought their first child home from the hospital. “Those were tough times — fun times though,” Booker said. “We put everything we had into this business. Just starting out with nothing to our names but a lot of ambition seemed like a gamble to some, but we knew that with lots of hard work and dedication, we would grow a successful company.” READ MORE HERE

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