Descendants of former Pine Run residents choose Pine Run for their retirement for its longstanding commitment to creating a vibrant lifestyle combined with the security of being a part of the Doylestown Health system
“He loved it, loved it, loved it here,” said Elizabeth Lyle of the 10 years her father lived at Pine Run Retirement Community, Bucks County’s leading senior health care and retirement community. “He just blossomed when he got here, so when it came time for me to choose a retirement community, Pine Run was the natural choice.”
Seeing her dad, Donald Marsh, so fully enjoy his retirement at Pine Run’s lush, 43-acre campus near Doylestown played a pivotal role in Lyle’s decision to move to Pine Run in 2020.
“He went to cocktail parties, played pool and became so active. He just wasn’t the quiet, not-very-social father that I had known,” said Lyle. “Pine Run really brought another dimension to his life.”
Located on Ferry Road in Doylestown Township in Central Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Pine Run Retirement Community opened in 1976, one of the first retirement communities in Bucks County and the only one with a full-service, 200-bed regional Health Center devoted exclusively to senior health care. Doylestown Hospital purchased Pine Run in 1992, and, six years later, a personal care facility in Doylestown Borough, which is now Pine Run Lakeview.
Over the ensuing decades, the highly regarded retirement community and the continuum of care it offers under the auspices of the Doylestown Health network has attracted generations of families. Today, Pine Run continues to support seniors in living healthy, active lifestyles by offering a wealth of activities and amenities including a state-of-the-art fitness and aquatic center that make Pine Run a very desirable place to live.
“It’s like living at a resort,” said Lyle, of her Pine Run home, where she lives in a beautifully renovated custom cottage that “my dad wouldn’t recognize as Pine Run!” An unexpected benefit from moving to the community where her father had spent so many fulfilling years, she added, was, “there are Villagers here who were very good friends with my father, and 11 years later, when I came here, they shared all these memories with me. That’s just one more reason Pine Run is a very special place.”
Providing every resident with a vibrant, enriching life at Pine Run is precisely Maria Santangelo’s mission.
“To have the children or other relatives of our former Villagers retire at Pine Run is a wonderful demonstration of just what a special place it is. While the care that we offer has not changed over our 45 year history, we now offer our second and third generations of Villagers a healthy, modern, and exciting lifestyle that meets and exceeds expectations of today’s seniors,” said Santangelo, Pine Run’s Executive Director.
John and Margot Winfree could not be more pleased with their choice to move to Pine Run, where Margot’s parents had lived in the 1990s.
“They were very happy here,” Margot said of her mother and father, Alan and Inge Woglom. “They liked the fact that they could walk a lot, like they did in Germany, just like we do, too.”
Pine Run’s campus boasts the “Green Road” where Villagers can stroll along a tree-lined landscape, home to foxes and deer and a plethora of birds. Benches invite walkers to sit and relax along the way. It is that natural landscape that Margot’s mother so loved during her time at Pine Run. Inge Woglom lived with Parkinson’s disease in her later years. The care she received at Pine Run Health Center was excellent, Margot said.
“The staff would not just let her sit; they developed activities for her and focused on Mom’s emotional, physical and spiritual well-being during her time at the Health Center,” she said. “She loved the food and she even enjoyed massages three or four times a week.”
While the Winfrees spent time evaluating other retirement communities before choosing Pine Run, they settled on the familiar, bucolic community, knowing it would meet all their needs, especially with the addition of amenities like the new Community and Fitness Center. Both of them have participated in a number of classes and activities at Pine Run, and John works out at the gym at least three times a week.
“We’re very happy to be here,” Margot said. “We’re just having a blast,” said John, adding, “I even joined a writer’s group – and I had never written anything in my life.”
After leaving a large home and property and all the responsibilities that came along with it, John said he’s more relaxed, knowing he no longer has those worries.
Carole T. Scanlon called her decision to move to Pine Run, where her aunt had enjoyed her retirement years, “one of those flashes of the future.”
After hearing her cousin describe the amenities at Pine Run and how pleased her aunt, Marie Dollenberg, had been living there, Scanlon said, “I trusted her judgment so much, I knew Pine Run would be right for me, too.”
A native of Philadelphia, Scanlon had lived for many years in Fairfax, Virginia, where she had a marketing and business development firm. But she wanted to return to her “roots” and be close to her cousin, Gretchen, who lives in upper Bucks County. When she saw Pine Run and the newly remodeled cottage that would be her home, she said, “I took one look and said, ‘I’ll take it.’ I saw the possibilities, the skylights, the view, and knew this is what I wanted. This was where I belonged.”
Today, Scanlon is active in the community, where she serves as a representative of her cluster of cottages, as the director of communications for the Pine Run Villagers Association, and as chair of the Village Voices choir.
“I moved here to be sure I could live out my life with independence. I didn’t want to burden anyone,” Scanlon said. “Those are the same attributes that have attracted residents to Pine Run for decades.”
Midge and Lloyd Vansant’s parents were among the first people to move into Pine Run in 1976. Samuel C. Vansant, was Pine Run’s third resident and enjoyed the time he spent with Midge and Lloyd who lived two miles away during his brief time at Pine Run before his health declined. Midge’s parents, G. Arthur and Mildred Wilkinson, also moved to Pine Run later that year. Although Mildred died well before Arthur, he enjoyed 17 years at Pine Run, making significant contributions to the community, the development of the Villager Association, and serving on the community’s finance committee.
“They were very happy here,” said Midge, adding that her father was very active at Pine Run, together with his poodle, Sparky, and became well known for his musical skits of Gilbert and Sullivan shows that he organized and performed with the dining room staff. “He had never done anything like that before. That was an interest that he developed here at Pine Run,” she said.
Lloyd and Midge volunteer two days a week at Doylestown Hospital and take comfort at Pine Run’s place in the health system’s ecosystem of care. They moved to Pine Run five years ago from their home in Doylestown. Like their parents before them, they too, are active and happy to live at Pine Run. “We’ve met a lot of wonderful people and we’re very well taken care of,” Lloyd said. “What’s not to like?” Midge added.