The day before his wife, Jane Cook, was to be released from Vassar Hospital after suffering the latest in a series of strokes, Peter Steiner was arranging for round-the-clock care at their home in Sharon. Visiting Nurse and Hospice of Litchfield County suggested he reach out to East Mountain House in Lakeville.
After three and a half years as Cook’s primary caregiver, Steiner said, “I can’t say I was worn out but I knew it would be better for everyone if she wasn’t at home for her last weeks. I thought, we can try out East Mountain House and leave if it didn’t work.”
Cook stayed there until her death three weeks later.
“From the moment we arrived I thought it was a positive, warm, welcoming place,” Steiner said. “You feel you are in someone’s home. There are pictures on the wall. It was calm. The caregivers took wonderful care of Jane. And there are volunteers too, wonderful people — and a dog too named Lucy — whose job it is to care for and comfort the family members too. They were there whenever I needed them, which was often, and their comfort was invaluable.”
East Mountain House, an end-of-life care home that opened last fall in Lakeville, seeks to redefine the final days of life as something less clinical and more relational. “We’re living until we’re dead,” said Craig Davis, one of its founders. “So this is a community for a living people, until it’s not that way.”
The idea for such a place began taking shape more than a decade ago, in 2012, when Davis — a longtime meditator and Lakeville resident — began volunteering in New York City emergency rooms as part of the New York Zen Center’s Foundations in Contemplative Care Program.
“It was an amazing experience,” Davis said. “I saw everything one could see. People in emergency rooms are always questioning, they are fearful of dying, there is such uncertainty. I would just introduce myself as Craig and ask, ‘How are you holding up?’ I learned to be present and open and nonjudgemental with people.”
He began imagining a place outside the hospital — “just a place,” as he described it — where people could be cared for and die with dignity. He shared the idea with Keavy Bedell, a friend and former colleague who ran a private practice managing care teams for the sick and dying and who, in 2020, also enrolled in the Zen Center’s contemplative care program.
“Craig and I were asking ourselves, ‘How do we look at dying as part of living, and how do we confront our own death by tending to those who are dying and find a little more freedom in our lives?’” Bedell said. “It is the time of life that deserves attention, not looking away.”
Clarity came suddenly in 2020, after the death of Davis’s wife of 35 years, Sandy. “She had died at home and that was an extraordinarily symbolic and moving experience for me,” he said. “And the light went on: Why not my house for this place?”
The connection remains deeply personal. “We were dreaming about this for 10 years. Sandy was certainly part of that dream,” Davis said. “ I can say now, when I go in that room in particular, I get goosebumps, it’s a very visceral feeling in Sandy’s room.”
With legal guidance, Davis and Bedell formed a nonprofit and ensured it would operate within all applicable standards. After renovations, East Mountain House opened last September in Davis’s former home on Bostwick Street; Davis moved to an adjoining property.
Visitors are greeted by four framed words near the entrance: pause… take a deep breath… reverence… a deep bow.
“One is being asked to become mindful before entering,” Davis said. “And one just continues with that mindfulness and contemplativeness as one sits at the bedsides of our guests.”
All guests are admitted through Visiting Nurse and Hospice of Litchfield County, either by referral or self-referral if eligibility criteria are met. Hospice nurses and medical professionals continue to oversee medical care, covered by insurance.
What distinguishes East Mountain House is what happens in the many hours hospice care does not cover.
Hospices typically provide only limited weekly visits. At East Mountain House, guests receive 24/7 care from paid, highly trained professionals under the direction of care coordinator Kimberle Madsen, along with support from volunteers offering services ranging from reading aloud to therapeutic touch.
“At East Mountain House we do all the physical care,” said Cristin Rich, the home’s executive director, who holds master’s degrees in environmental management and nursing management. “The bathing, the toiletry, the making of beds, the cleaning up, and the meals are all taken care of. Families are relieved of all of that so they can bring all their presence to the bedside.”
Family members may stay overnight in a separate room or in their loved one’s room. For Steiner, that meant being fully present with his wife in her final days. “I could spend as much time as I wanted by her bedside,” he said. Two of Cook’s three children were able to be with her at the end. “It was a terrible time,” Steiner said, “but it was the best it could have been for us at East Mountain House.”
Volunteers play a central role, particularly overnight. “No one should have to die alone, certainly if they don’t want to,” Davis said. “So at three in the morning, if people don’t have family, we want to have someone in there sitting with them.”
Kirby Lee, a caregiver at East Mountain House who is also trained as a death doula, said the model fills a growing need. “If you’re not able to die at home because maybe you only live with one other person, that’s just not really a lot of care,” she said. “These homes, they’re not medical and they’re by the community, for the community. It’s not an institution.”
“Death doesn’t have to be medicalized or institutionalized,” Lee added. “It’s a community thing. It’s a human thing.”
Central to the mission is access. “It’s pay-as-you’re-able. We’re not turning anybody away,” Davis said. “Whatever people can pay, we ask that they pay.” Guests who have the means are asked to contribute a per diem fee for services beyond hospice care.
The house receives funding through private donations. “If people in the community want to support what we are doing, we welcome their donations,” Rich said.
For Rich and Davis, the work continues to be both demanding and deeply affirming. “Every family teaches us something,” Rich said. “And if I ever stop learning from that, then it’s time to find a new director.”
Davis put it simply: “Care becomes presence. Dignity is restored.”
How wonderful. It is true – no one should have to die alone.