Saranac Village at Will Rogers (Photo provided)

SARANAC LAKE — The Will Rogers independent living retirement community is currently under contract to be sold to another company, with the sale scheduled to finalize this winter.

Leadership at the current owners, Kaplan Development Group, say the potential new owners plan to run the facility as it has been.

“Everything they’re looking to do is to come in and run the facility exactly the same as it’s been to this date,” Kaplan President Ben Wells said. “If they have future plans, that’s up to them. But as far as I know, there’s no major plans.”

Currently, 72 residents ranging in age from their early 70s to over 100 call Will Rogers their home and there are 30 people who work there.

Wells said he couldn’t share who the purchasing company is at this point, but that he’s “100% confident” in them. People’s quality of life and livelihoods are at stake and he said they made sure the buyer has a good reputation.

Kaplan wasn’t looking to sell, Wells said. The buyer approached them with the deal.

Will Rogers Executive Director Jamie Whidden said he learned about the pending sale just recently.

“I trust the people that I’ve been working for almost 24 years,” Whidden said. “I trust they would have somebody for us who would want to continue our important mission.”

He loves the Will Rogers community.

“We’ve got a great thing going,” Whidden said.

This year is the retirement community’s 25th anniversary of being open.

Whidden has worked there the entire time and is now seeing his second generation of residents at the center.

“The people that I served when I first started, now, their adult children live here as retirees,” he said. “We’re taking care of generations of people here.”

The business is successful, he said, and the center has added lots of new residents this summer. There’s a good base that he hopes the next owner can improve on.

Wells said the potential new owners intend to keep the same staff.

“We are proud of the strong community that has been built at Saranac Village at Will Rogers and are working closely with all parties involved to make this transition as seamless as possible,” Wells said in a statement.

Will Rogers has 75 apartments. It’s residency depends on how many couples live there.

Room rates are currently as low as $1,600 a month with full financial aid — $2,250 without financial aid — for its smallest units. Sizing and pricing goes up to three-bedroom, two-bath units at $5,900 a month.

Whidden said they hold 20% of their units open for people who qualify for financial aid.

Housing includes meals, housekeeping, activities, transportation and emergency response.

Everyone involved spoke of the importance of Will Rogers to the community. On top of being a place for seniors to live independently, it also plays host to concerts, North Country New Year events, the Winter Carnival slide show and other public events.

Kaplan took over Will Rogers after the first year of it being open as a senior living community.

Whidden said they’ve been great to the center, helping it get through challenges like the coronavirus pandemic.

Will Rogers is Kaplan’s only fully independent living facility.

The historic Tudor revival-style facility was built in 1928 as the National Vaudeville Artists’ Home, a tuberculosis sanatorium with a focus on treating Hollywood’s entertainers. It then became the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital in 1936, named after the vaudeville humorist and actor who had died in a plane crash shortly before. He never had tuberculosis himself.

The facility was used during the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid. It was converted to senior housing after years of vacancy.