The owner of the Maple Valley Nursing Home in Kasson Township said he was surprised that county officials haven't made a bigger deal out of the fact that Leelanau County no longer owns the building and land occupied by the nursing home.

Nursing home owner/operator John Kasben acknowledged this week that sale of the county-owned property was completed on April 29 when he and the chairman of the county Board of Commissioners, Robert Hawley, signed closing documents. The fact that the sale had been completed was never mentioned by Hawley or other county commissioners in public meetings.

“They actually closed on the sale?” asked county clerk Michelle Crocker, who is responsible for keeping minutes of all county board meetings. “That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” she told a newspaper reporter this week.

Earlier this year, the county board adopted a resolution authorizing Hawley to sign closing documents on the sale of the nursing home property as soon as attorneys for the county and Kasben hammered out contract language. That process took several months.

The process of “disposing of” the nursing home property took several years of work by a “Maple Valley Nursing Home subcommittee” of county commissioners – and considerable debate among the entire county board. For years, District No. 7 commissioner Melinda Lautner expressed her desire that the county “get out of the nursing home business.”

“Actually, they were never in the nursing home business; I was,” Kasben said. “The county was in the landlord business – and the way things are now is a great improvement.”

The county’s ownership of the property predates the advent of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, when counties routinely owned and operated “old folks homes.” Kasben subsequently gained a license to operate the 25-bed nursing home, but leased the facility and land from the county.

The purchase agreement required Kasben to pay $400,000 for the nursing home building and the 12.2-acre property it occupies along with an easement for a drainfield on county property at the neighboring Myles Kimmerly Park.

“We had a big pizza dinner for residents the day after we closed,” Kasben said. “Other than that, we’ve been doing some remodeling here and there, a little bit at a time.”

Kasben said his “long range plans” for the nursing home include the construction of a “greenhouse unit” for about 10 residents.

“It’s a whole new concept to create a much more homelike environment for residents,” Kasben explained.

He said the nursing home currently employs about 40 people, both part-time and fulltime.

Gaining ownership of the building and the land it occupies “was a long battle,” Kasben said, “but it’s over, and now we’re moving ahead.”