Fulton Manor sits at 1450 Fulton Street East in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where it once served as a retirement home and senior care facility under Holland Home, a group that's been around since 1892, and you can still see the older parts of the campus since they went through several expansions over the years, starting with eight residents in 1912 and growing to care for over 4,000 people every day across three campuses, with Fulton Manor being one of them, and they built the East Building in 1954, the West Building in 1959, the Grace Building in 1967, the Fulton Building in 1971, and the Van Andel Pavilion in 1998, all designed with red brick, inset windows, simple lines, and minimal decoration, following plans by architect James K. Haveman, so each part is connected together like one big home.
The campus offered assisted living, independent living, residential care, nursing care, and dementia care such as Alzheimer's care, with specialized services through skilled nurses, aides, med nurses, nurse case managers, and occupational therapy, which started way back in 1961, plus there were special care for memory problems to reduce wandering and keep residents comfortable. People lived in apartments with basic but useful features like kitchens, bathrooms, closets, vinyl floors, smoke detectors, phone jacks, and their own thermostat controls, so everyone could feel at home without anything too fancy, and floor plans were available to help people choose what fit best.
Fulton Manor was known for its garden and patio areas, lounges, dining rooms, meeting and craft rooms, recreation spaces, a chapel for religious services, and a computer lab, plus laundry facilities, indoor mailboxes, and restrooms for visitors, which helped keep daily living organized and gave folks plenty of things to do, along with regular activities like gardening, exercise classes, card games, movies, and birthday parties to keep everyone engaged, and people really got to know each other, often caring about their neighbors like family.
Staff would help with planning and advice, offer home care and hospice through Faith Hospice and Atrio Home Care, run rehabilitation programs, and make sure meals were nutritious, balanced, and cooked by chefs using good ingredients, which was all included in a monthly fee that covered housekeeping, laundry, home maintenance, and utilities, so residents could focus on living rather than chores, and everyone had the added security of entry intercoms and emergency call systems for peace of mind.
Fulton Manor was part of Michigan's first registered Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC), giving people several choices about how much help they wanted-some lived independently, some used assisted living or memory care, and others needed skilled nurses for health problems, and care teams worked closely together to make sure each person got a plan that fit them, whether that meant simple help with daily life or more complex medical support.
The site has a long history, landing on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021, and though it stopped serving as a senior home after being bought by Hope Network for redevelopment into low-income housing, it stands as a place that once brought care and comfort to thousands of older adults in West Michigan, always focusing on supporting people's needs with a wide mix of housing, activities, and medical services right on campus.
