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Veterans’ Home Takes Shape in Holyoke

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The new Veterans’ Home at Holyoke is slated to welcome its first residents next September.
Cover Story Healthcare News

View to the Future

The new Veterans’ Home at Holyoke is slated to welcome its first residents next September.

The new Veterans’ Home at Holyoke is slated to welcome its first residents next September.

An architect’s rendering of the new facility shows its compelling design and ornate gardens.

An architect’s rendering of the new facility shows its compelling design and ornate gardens.

The new Veterans’ Home at Holyoke won’t be welcoming its first residents for another nine months or so, but the gleaming, $500 million structure on a hill overlooking the Paper City has already captured the imagination of the region.

Highly visible to motorists on I-91 and to residents of Holyoke as well, the nine-story, Y-shaped building — a design one of those on the construction team said was inspired by the tricorn hats worn by Revolutionary War soldiers — serves as both a reminder of the tragedy that occurred during the early days of COVID at the structure it will replace, as well as a symbol of the state’s commitment to modernize the facility in the wake of that calamity.

Michael Lazo, executive director of the home, was a member of the National Guard unit that was dispatched to what was then called the Soldiers’ Home in late March 2020 amid a deepening crisis that would eventually take the lives of 76 residents in one of the nation’s worst COVID-19 outbreaks in a long-term care facility.

“I remember first walking in and not knowing what the heck we were walking into,” he recalled, noting that he arrived at the site on March 30, three days after the facility’s leadership made the fateful decision to combine two locked dementia units into a single undersized unit, precipitating the rapid spread of COVID. “Everything looked completely normal; you wouldn’t think anything was going on.”

Lazo would later be offered a full-time COO position at the home and eventually would be named interim director by the board of trustees and then the state. Today, he oversees all operations at the home while also preparing for the opening of the new facility, which will be called the Veterans’ Home, rather than the Soldiers’ Home, in deference to the veterans who served in other branches of the military.

“I think it just came down to money; other priorities probably stepped in and took precedence, so some of the funding this building should have received went elsewhere.”

“Especially the Marines — they’ve never liked Soldiers’ Home,” he joked, adding that he’s also finding time these days to offer tours of the building in progress — to staff, a few elected officials (more of those are scheduled to go through in the days and weeks to come), and a few media members.

BusinessWest was afforded such a tour late last month. As noted, the facility is several months from welcoming its first residents, and only a few floors are even approaching completion. But even at this early stage, it’s apparent that the complex itself is a work of art — one that will integrate the building with the surrounding landscape — and the structure will be state-of-the-art.

Indeed, building systems, designed to LEED Gold certification, include geothermal heating and cooling and facilities that are net-zero energy ready, a high-efficiency exterior envelope with triple-glazed windows, and natural ventilation. The foundation and outdoor retaining wall are made up of Goshen stone. Amenities include a great room, chapel, memory care floor, 40-person adult day health program, dental suite, salon, hobby room, four gardens, and a central kitchen.

Michael Lazo says the new Veterans’ Home at Holyoke emphasizes the privacy and dignity of residents.

Michael Lazo says the new Veterans’ Home at Holyoke emphasizes the privacy and dignity of residents.

Overall, said Lazo, the facility, complete with its curved brick walls, takes the form of three shells that overlap to define three inpatient neighborhoods, each of which benefits from light and views. A typical resident floor will be comprised of three ‘houses’ with 12 beds per house, nursing support, and community spaces, including dining, living, and den. A large garden anchors the complex, and in between wings are smaller, dedicated gardens.

For this issue, BusinessWest takes an early look at what will be one of the biggest stories of 2026, the long-awaited opening of the Veterans’ Home and the start of a new era of service to those who have served their country.

 

Learning Curves

Lazo said he wasn’t around, so he can only speculate and reflect on what he’s been told over the years.

But he believes that, in the years preceding the COVID tragedy, the state “simply forgot about” the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke.

One of his predecessors in the director’s role resigned over what amounted to indifference on the state’s part concerning the facility, he said, adding that, in the decades preceding the COVID tragedy, there was little investment in the facility, and little oversight as well — and it showed, especially in the broad realm of preventive maintenance, or the lack thereof.

“I think it just came down to money; other priorities probably stepped in and took precedence, so some of the funding this building should have received went elsewhere,” he said, adding, again, that he was just speculating.

The tragic events in the early days of COVID and the investigations that followed certainly put the facility front of mind, triggering significant reforms to the state’s oversight of its veterans’ homes, he said, adding that what emerged were plans for a new long-term care facility that would serve more veterans and provide them with state-of-the-art amenities.

An architect’s rendering of the new Veterans’ Home at Holyoke.

An architect’s rendering of the new Veterans’ Home at Holyoke.

There was some talk of expanding and modernizing the current facility, he noted, but building new emerged as the more practical option. And while another site may have been considered, the state became committed to keeping the facility at its prominent hilltop location, a popular decision, but one that has presented challenges to the builders of the new facility as they squeezed it onto the site — and will present more to those that will tear down the current home.

Indeed, when finished, one corner of the new home will be just 10 feet from the current facility, which will eventually be used for parking and a garden area.

The new facility will house 234 residents, almost double the current population of 128. There will be 212 single-occupancy bedrooms and 11 double-occupancy bedrooms in those three neighborhoods mentioned earlier: North House, East House, and West House.

These neighborhoods, which will house veterans of several different conflicts (including World War II) and peacetime periods as well, represent substantial improvements over current facilities, said Lazo, especially in the realms of privacy and dignity of residents — each unit has a private bath and showers, while the current facility features common baths — as well as activities and things to do.

“Each veteran has a good-sized room, and there’s plenty of activity space, both on the first floor as well as in each individual unit.”

“The space for veterans is great,” Lazo said. “Each veteran has a good-sized room, and there’s plenty of activity space, both on the first floor as well as in each individual unit. Each floor will have a different activity; we’ll have an exercise bike or some small weights on one floor and arts supplies on the next floor, so veterans will be able to move about the building to do whatever activity they’re interested in at that time.”

And then, there will be the so-called great room, which will host large gatherings such as holiday activities and Super Bowl watch parties, he said, noting that it will be equipped with a 90-inch television.

 

Tour de Force

As BusinessWest toured the second floor of the new facility and a 30-unit memory care unit under construction there, we were directed to one of the 12- by 16-foot resident rooms, complete with a large window, spacious bath and shower area, space where a 55-inch television will go, built-in storage and shelving units, a desk, and other accommodations.

As the tour continued, Tim Senecal, general supervisor with Commodore Walsh Holyoke, a joint venture comprised of Commodore Builders LLC and Walsh Brothers Inc., referenced common den areas with huge windows and sweeping views of the surrounding area, the facility’s chapel, administrative space, and the location that will become the great room.

A rendering of the planned great room.

A rendering of the planned great room.

“The higher you go, the better the views get, obviously,” said Senecal, who talked as he walked — about everything from those views to the many challenges involved with construction, from excavating for the foundation to the brickwork, made more difficult by the curved nature of the structure, to the Goshen stone retaining wall.

Some of the building’s design elements were borrowed from the new Veterans’ Home at Chelsea, a smaller facility (154 beds) that opened last year, said Lazo, adding that the overall design is distinct, with input from the staff at the current home.

As noted earlier, the first residents will not move into the new home until next September; the first group of 24 will be moved from the fourth floor of the current facility to the third floor of the new one. After that, if all goes well, veterans will move in roughly 20 at a time, with the memory care residents being the last to move. Lazo said his goal is to have all residents moved by February 2027.

That 16-month period will be the most challenging for the staff members at the facility because they will be managing two facilities at the same time, he added, noting that final project completion, including the demolition of the current home, is slated for mid-2028.

As he talked about that teardown and the logistical challenges it will present, Lazo joked that it’s likely that several staff members wouldn’t mind helping with that effort and send the tired, tragedy-scarred property into history.

But that will also be a sad time, he said, noting that several generations from the same families, including his own, lived and died in that home.

The new home, born in many ways from that tragedy of nearly six years ago, will no doubt create its own memories and its own history.

But right now, it’s creating excitement for the next chapter in the story of this fabled property — and with good reason.

Western Mass. Lawmakers Appointed to Soldiers’ Home Conference Committee

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Daily News

BOSTON — State Sen. John Velis and state Rep. Joseph Wagner were appointed to the conference committee tasked with resolving differences between the two different Soldiers’ Home governance reform bills passed by the House and Senate.

“It is absolutely paramount that we get these reforms right, for all the veterans who tragically passed away at our Commonwealth’s Soldiers’ Homes during the spring of 2020 and for all the future veterans who will resides in these homes for the years to come,” said Velis, who also chairs the Legislature’s veterans’ and federal affairs committee. “We passed a really great bill in the Senate that institutes a clear chain of command and maintains power at the local level. The House had a very deliberative approach, which resulted in some very good ideas as well, and I believe there is plenty of room for us to build on. It is so important that our final legislation ensures that there is a clear chain of command in the reporting structure, that the appropriate medical personnel are in place, and that each home’s local board has an indispensable role at their facility. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the conference committee to accomplish these goals.”

The House passed its version, H.4441, on Feb. 10, and the Senate passed its version, S.2761, on March 10. Conference committees meet privately to resolve differences and produce a final report. That legislation is then sent back to each branch and subsequently to the governor’s desk.

The other conference committee members appointed are state Sens. Mike Rush and Bruce Tarr and state Reps. Paul McMurtry and David DeCoste.

New Soldiers’ Home Gains Momentum

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Opinion

Opinion

Make no mistake about it, when it comes to the tragic COVID-related deaths at the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke almost a year ago, there are no silver linings. There is nothing that can fill the void left by lost loved ones, and nothing that can relieve the anguish visited upon staff members who had to endure that catastrophic sequence of events that led to the deaths of at least 76 veterans.

But sometimes, such tragedies eventually lead to progress, to improvements, to new and better ways of doing things. And it appears that this may well be the case with the Soldiers’ Home.

Indeed, out of the ashes of the calamity of last spring have emerged plans for a new, eight-story Holyoke Soldiers’ Home that will replace the 70-year-old facility that is, in many ways, inadequate and obsolete. Last week, the Baker-Polito administration filed a $400 million bond bill to move forward with the construction of the new home, the next big step in the process of making a new facility reality.

While the need for a new Soldiers’ Home has long been understood and embraced, there is no doubt that the events of last spring — when the virus overran the facility amid a series of questionable decisions that ultimately led to resignations and, later, indictments for criminal neglect — have helped pave the way for a proper, modern, 235-bed facility that will serve veterans for generations to come.

This project still has a long way to go before it becomes reality. There are stern deadlines to meet and more important votes to take place in the state Legislature. But there certainly appears to be sufficient momentum to see this initiative to the finish line. It has been generated by caring people who want to do right by future generations of veterans — but also, we believe, by a deep desire to “make things right” for the families of those who died last spring and the for the staff members who have long endured inadequate facilities, said the chairman of a coalition of former Soldiers’ Home administrators, families, and veterans advocates who have embraced plans for a new home.

Truthfully, nothing will really make things right. But this is huge step in the right direction.

Opinion: Momentum Builds for a New Soldiers’ Home

By
Daily News

Make no mistake about it, when it comes to the tragic COVID-related deaths at the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke almost a year ago, there are no silver linings. There is nothing that can fill the void left by lost loved ones, and nothing that can relieve the anguish visited upon staff members who had to endure that catastrophic sequence of events that led to the deaths of at least 76 veterans.

But sometimes, such tragedies eventually lead to progress, to improvements, to new and better ways of doing things. And it appears that this may well be the case with the Soldiers’ Home.

Indeed, out of the ashes of the calamity of last spring have emerged plans for a new, eight-story Holyoke Soldiers’ Home that will replace the 70-year-old facility that is, in many ways, inadequate and obsolete. Last week, the Baker-Polito administration filed a $400 million bond bill to move forward with the construction of the new home, the next big step in the process of making a new facility reality.

While the need for a new Soldiers’ Home has long been understood and embraced, there is no doubt that the events of last spring — when the virus overran the facility amid a series of questionable decisions that ultimately led to resignations and, later, indictments for criminal neglect — have helped pave the way for a proper, modern, 235-bed facility that will serve veterans for generations to come.

This project still has a long way to go before it becomes reality. There are stern deadlines to meet and more important votes to take place in the state Legislature. But there certainly appears to be sufficient momentum to see this initiative to the finish line. It has been generated by caring people who want to do right by future generations of veterans — but also, we believe, by a deep desire to “make things right” for the families of those who died last spring and the for the staff members who have long endured inadequate facilities, said the chairman of a coalition of former Soldiers’ Home administrators, families, and veterans advocates who have embraced plans for a new home.

Truthfully, nothing will really make things right. But this is huge step in the right direction.

Health/Wellness Administrator/Administration: Celeste Surreira

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Celeste Surreira
Healthcare Heroes

At the Soldiers’ Home, She’s a Nurse, Leader, Mentor, and Role Model

Celeste Surreira

Celeste Surreira

Celeste Surreira was talking about her work, and, more specifically, the unique constituency she serves, when she abruptly stopped in mid-sentence.

Strains of “Anchors Away,” the fight song of the U.S. Naval Academy, had permeated the walls of her office, and she knew exactly what that meant: the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke was giving a Navy veteran a ‘farewell.’

Rising from her seat quickly, she invited BusinessWest to follow her to what she promised would be a solemn and immensely powerful ceremony. That was an understatement.

In the front lobby of the Soldiers Home sat a casket covered by a quilt, patterned specifically for a Navy veteran, that was made by one of the facility’s nurses. Behind it stood many family members. To the sides were Soldiers’ Home staffers, who, in many respects, are also ‘family’ for this individual — and all other veterans who come there.

Collectively, they assembled, with hands over their hearts, and heard about his life — not just about his service in the Seabees (the U.S. Naval Construction Battalions) during World War II, but about his family (three sons, 13 grand-children, and “eight, soon to be nine” great-grandchildren); the decades he spent as a commercial painter (he and his father helped paint the Soldiers’ Home when it first opened in 1952); his love for Holyoke, his long-time home; his affection for golf; and more.

Then came “Taps.” And many tears.

Walking back to her office, Surreira put the ceremony in its proper context, and in so doing helped explain why she came to the Soldiers’ Home in 2014 and why she is so passionate about the many facets of her work that she was named the Healthcare Hero in arguably the most competitive category — Health/Wellness Adminstrator/Administration.

“They go out the same door they came in — it’s our honor to them,” she said of the servicemen and women being given a farewell. “And that’s very important. When I worked in the hospital, death was something we hid, like it was like a failure; they [deceased patients] went out the back door. Here, death is a celebration of life; there’s no shame. They go out the front door.”

“When I worked in the hospital, death was something we hid, like it was like a failure; they [deceased patients] went out the back door. Here, death is a celebration of life; there’s no shame. They go out the front door.”

Surreira would speak often about the veterans she now serves as she talked about her career and her current work, because the clientele, if you will (they simply call them ‘veterans’ here), is truly unique, and this is reflected in everything from how services are delivered to how these individuals are addressed.

“I thought this was a really interesting population to have the honor to work with,” she said, adding that the Soldiers’ Home, a 265-room, long-term-care facility (which also has outpatient services and a domiciliary), represents a significant career shift for her, with most of her 33 years in nursing having been spent in the emergency room. But in many ways, the issues and challenges facing veterans at the facility and the providers caring for them mirror those of society in general as the population ages and people live longer.

“This is where healthcare is going,” she told BusinessWest. “The population is living longer with chronic diseases. This is the population with which we’re really going to have to make an impact if we’re going to manage the needs of the overall population over the next 30 years.”

In her role as assistant director of Nursing, Surreira has a lengthy job description, and considers herself — and, more to the point, she’s considered by others — to be a care provider, leader, teacher, mentor, and role model.

And she takes each of those responsibilities very seriously, especially the leader and role-model parts.

“Leadership and management are two different things,” she told BusinessWest. “You can manage, which means doing payroll or doing a schedule or telling someone what to do. Or you can lead, which to me means inspiring people to become leaders.

“You can’t lead if you don’t have emotional intelligence,” she went on. “People are just going to see you as the boss. And no one really follows the boss; they’re not inspired by bosses. I’ve always said, if you have to tell someone what your title is in order for them to know you’re the leader, then you’re not really the leader — someone else in the room is the leader.”

One of Surreira’s working definitions of a leader is that of an individual who can work with others to achieve positive change and improve quality of life for those being served, and as we’ll see, there are many examples of how she’s been able to do just that, and thus become a true Healthcare Hero.

Walking the Walk

They call it the ‘Walk Across America.’

This is a walking track of sorts at the Soldiers’ Home, located just outside the facility’s rehab area; 22 laps equals a full mile. There’s a mural covering a few hallways depicting different places across the country, hence the name, said Surreira, and different administrators are actually assigned to certain veterans to walk with them across America on days the veterans choose themselves.

Celeste Surreira says the Walk Across America

Celeste Surreira says the Walk Across America (that’s the St. Louis panel within the mural behind her) is one of many initiatives aimed at improving the mobility of veterans at the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke.

The track is one of several ‘places to move,’ as Surreira calls them, that have been created in recent years as part of a broad effort to enhance the mobility of the veterans at the Soldiers’ Home and thus improve quality of life and actually reduce the rate of falls.

As with most all initiatives at this facility, this was (and is, as such work is ongoing) a team effort — actually a team with several smaller teams within it, such as the one assigned the task of creating places to move, she told BusinessWest.

The Walk Across America is just one example of that positive change and improvement in quality of life mentioned earlier that Surreira has helped orchestrate since arriving at the Soldiers’ Home in 2014.

She had been working just outside Atlanta as an interim director of Emergency Services at Rockdale Medical Center, and was looking to return to Western Mass., where she spent much of her career.

Indeed, she started in the emergency department at Ludlow Hospital in 1985, then spent more than two decades at Mercy Medical Center, starting as an staff RN and eventually advancing to manager of the Emergency Department. Earlier this decade, there was a short stint as administrative director of Emergency Services at Cooley Dickinson Hospital.

“I was looking at different positions up here, and I received a call regarding an opportunity at the Soldiers’ Home,” she recalled. “They were looking for a leader, someone who could come in and do some mentoring on leadership, and it sounded very interesting; it was a real change of pace for me to go into long-term care as well as geriatrics, but given my interest in leadership and veteran healthcare, a chance to work clinically, and all those things coming together, I thought that it would be a good opportunity for a change.”

And to work with an older population (most of the veterans are in their 80s and 90s) that, as noted earlier, reflects some of the larger, more complex issues facing all those in healthcare — specifically, not only caring for older individuals, but also helping them maintain independence and a high quality of life.

“Our focus is truly on how to promote a good quality of life for these older veterans,” Surreira explained. “We have 94- and 95-year-olds living very well.”

With this broad goal in mind, Surreira has created, and serves on, a number of process-improvement teams working on such matters as reducing the use of anti-psychotic medications, lowering the rate of falls, improving mobility, medication safety, and many others.

And as these teams address each of these areas, they do so with quality of life in mind, she said, using reduction of falls as an example. This could easily be accomplished by reducing one’s mobility, so he or she doesn’t get into positions where they can fall, Surreira went on. But this doesn’t equate to a high quality of life.

“This is where healthcare is going. The population is living longer with chronic diseases. This is the population with which we’re really going to have to make an impact if we’re going to manage the needs of the overall population over the next 30 years.”

“What we don’t want to do is promote the use of things like restraints and alarms, because they don’t allow people to move and self-propel,” she explained. “So what we try to do is advise them of safety and encourage their mobility; we want people to move, we want to take them for walks, we want to do everything we can to promote mobility while also reducing the risk of getting hurt from that fall if you do fall.”

To accomplish all this, Surreira leads the so-called ‘enhancing mobility team,’ which consists of several departments, including nursing, rehab, social work, facilities, and pharmacy working collaboratively to implement evidence-based interventions that will enhance mobility and reduce falls. This team has implemented a series of policies and procedures, including the introduction of a daily ‘fall huddle,’ interdisciplinary rounding, quarterly mobility screens, individualized care plans that include mobility goals, and regular review of polypharmacy.

As a result, the Soldiers’ Home has seen a confirmed reduction in fall-related injuries and a noticeable increase in the mobility of its population.

Taking the Lead

As noted earlier, Surreira’s position comes with a lengthy job description and list of responsibilities. And only a portion of them actually apply to the veterans being served.

The rest have to do with those other functions (for lack of a better term) that she carries out, including that of being a leader, a mentor, and a role model. Her ability to be all those things is a big reason why she was hired — and her desire to continually build upon those skills and add new layers to already considerable amounts of experience explains why she took it.

As she talked about being a leader, for example, she equated it to parenting.

“You mess up a lot, and then you learn how to be a better parent; it’s the same with being a leader,” she explained. “I think I’m a different leader now than when I started this journey, because it’s very humbling.”

Elaborating, she noted that one of the things she’s learned over the years is the importance of active listening.

“In order to hear the person, you can’t be thinking about your response already,” she said, citing a mindset held by all successful leaders. “You have to be totally focused on what they’re trying to tell you.

“You also need emotional intelligence, which means taking the time to know where that person is coming from and be queued into what they’re trying to communicate to you,” she went on. “Often, I tell people, ‘it’s not what they’re saying, but what they’re not saying; it’s not the words they’re saying, necessarily, but how they’re saying them. They may be saying something, but that’s not what they’re meaning or even intending.”

Surreira said mentoring takes place in many ways and on several different levels in her work at the Soldiers’ Home, including the formal teaching she does on subjects ranging from leadership to role-modeling.

“Mentorship from a leadership perspective takes place in a number of ways,” she explained. “Sometimes it takes place in just day-to-day interactions where you have opportunities to have a conversation with someone, provide someone with feedback … it’s all part of relationship building with those folks. Other times, it is more formal, such as the teaching I do.

As for the role-modeling, well, that part of it can really only happen as one adds layers of hands-on experience to their résumé, learns from previous mistakes, and develops a high degree of that necessary ingredient known as emotional intelligence.

“Even though someone may be handling a situation in a certain way, you can role-model a different way — that’s probably the most powerful thing to do,” she explained.

As an example, she cited a situation where there’s conflict going on and the discussion among individuals is getting quite heated.

“Managing yourself is probably the most important thing in those situations,” she said. “You manage your own reactions — the louder other folks may get, the quieter you get; the faster they talk, the slower you speak.

“Overall, mentoring involves building relationships and inspiring trust,” she went on, adding that ‘leading by example’ isn’t a formal line on her job description, but it’s a duty she carries out every day.

Waves of Emotion

Walking back to her office from the Navy veteran’s farewell, Surreira said the Soldiers’ Home obviously conducts many of these ceremonies. “Sometimes there will be two or three a day, and sometimes we’ll go a week without one,” she said, adding that, like most staff members, she tries not to miss a single one.

That’s because, as she said, at this facility, death isn’t something to be ashamed of; it’s not a failure. It’s part of a life being celebrated.

And improving the overall quality of that life has become the focal point of each individual and each team at the Soldiers’ Home.

Surreira’s leadership, mentoring ability, and passion for being a positive role have not only played a pivotal role in all this, they’ve made her a Healthcare Hero in administration.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]