COEUR DALENEThe owners of Beehive Homes, an assisted-living center here, have broken ground on the $2 million first phase of a similar facility that will be located at the east end of Sherman Avenue.


Beehives owners, Gary Ghramm and his wife, Linda, and Teri Marshall and her husband, David, will own the new facility, which is likely to use the Beehive name in some fashion, Ghramm says. Marshall, who currently is administrator at Beehive Homes, located at 632 N. 21st, will serve in that same capacity at both facilities when the new center opens, he says. David Marshall is construction manager for the project, which is being built by a separate company, called Beehive Development, owned by the Ghramms.


Construction of the new facility is expected to take about four months, with the first residents moving in by mid-February, Ghramm says. Eleven of the 30 rooms in the first phase of the facility have been reserved, he says.


Construction of a $1.7 million, 30-bed second phase of the project is expected to begin next summer, he says.


The new facility, at 2100 E. Sherman, ultimately will have four residential buildings, two of which will be built in the first phase and two in the second, Ghramm says. Each 6,500-square-foot building will have 15 bedrooms with private bathrooms, and a communal kitchen, dining room, and living room, he says. In that sense, the design is more like a nursing home than what is commonly considered an assisted-living facility, because the definition of assisted living is different in Idaho than it is in Washington, Ghramm says.


Miller Stauffer Architects PA, of Coeur dAlene, designed the new center.


The project also will include a building that will house the facilitys office and a recreation center, Ghramm says. Rates for the units will range from $2,700 to more than $3,000 a month, which will include some assisted-living care, he says.


All of the buildings will be arranged around a 16,000-square-foot courtyard that will feature a fishpond, lawn-bowling green, horseshoe pit, and putting green. The courtyard, which was designed by CDF Landscape, of Coeur dAlene, will be accessible from all four residential buildings, but also will be secure so that residents who suffer from short-term memory loss cant wander away, Ghramm says.


Marshall says the design of the new assisted-living centerespecially of the courtyard with its varied activitiesis aimed at helping residents feel like they havent given up the things they enjoyed when they lived on their own.


Its really geared toward perfecting their lifestyle, of feeling like they have the whole world in their hands, she says.


Beehive Homes current facility has 30 residents and employs 30 people, Ghramm says. He anticipates hiring an equal number of employees for the first phase of the new facility.


Ghramm and his wife have been in the adult-care business for 27 years, initially as operators of adult-family homes in Spokane, then in Coeur dAlene. The couple built and opened Beehive Homes in 1996, he says.


Marshall and her husband were included as minority owners of the project after Teri Marshall joined Beehive four years ago, Ghramm says.


Ghramm and his wife also own a 12-unit apartment complex directly north of Beehive Homes where resident-managers of the facility live. Ghramm says he anticipates remodeling that structure in the future and marketing it additionally to spouses of the residents of his assisted-living facilities.


Resident-managers of the new facility will live in apartments above the assisted-living facilities, he says.