Recovery Facility to Open $2.5M Expansion

Livengrin, an addiction recovery organization founded along Hulmeville Road, is poised for a spring or summer grand opening for a $2.5 million project that will move its clients into three new suburban-style houses.

Keith Mason, director of communications, says the houses are essentially finished; landscaping will come next; and Livengrin is waiting for some final approvals, including certificates of occupancy.

Once opened, the houses will provide a total of 18,000 square feet, which will allow a maximum of 70 residential rehab patients to move out of two dorm-style wings built in the 1960s and 1970s. The new buildings sit on a hillside just steps from the central manor-house facility at the heart of a 41-acre campus.

Two upper floors of the manor house were the initial dorms for clients before the wings were built.

The newly built homes are seen as an enhancement to the treatment process.

They include small kitchens, a laundry, a lounge area and a deck facing the woods. They have been adapted on the inside to include multiple bedrooms. Male and female clients, who often stay at Livengrin for a three-week period, will be segregated.

“There's a lot of buzz in the community and our alumni certainly are talking about it,” said Mason. “There's a big advantage, as people understand that this will be just plain comfortable and not like being in a concrete hospital.”

“There's still a lot of stigma attached to treatment, as if there are straitjackets and screaming in the night. It's nothing like that at all,” he added.

The general designs for the houses are modeled on plans provided by a member of the Livengrin Board of Directors, homebuilder Ben Ciliberto of C&M Builders, of Bucks County.

Building anew proved to be more cost-effective than renovation.

“We had the opportunity to construct something new and modern or go back into this very old building (and rehab it) and it was just as sensible to do something new,” Mason said.

Another advantage is that Livengrin will be able to repurpose its two dormitory wings. That space will be used for such things as meeting rooms, space for counselors and expansion of services to include crafts, exercise and spiritual needs.

The construction project is the largest in the 40-year history of Livengrin, and funding was accomplished without a capital campaign.

“With good financial management over the years we had enough of our own financing to deal with bank loans and down payments,” said Mason.

In addition to its own money, the project was assisted by a $500,000 grant from Pennsylvania's Redevelopment Capital Assistance Program, based on recommendations from Rep. Gene DiGirolamo (R-Bucks).

Livengrin, The Foundation for Addiction Recovery, is a nonprofit treatment organization founded in 1966. It has centers in seven towns including Levittown, Doylestown and Philadelphia, and has treated more than 100,000 people with alcohol and/or drug addiction.