By Morgan Pilz, Staff Writer

The Macky and Pam Stansell Hospice House is located on 1500 Ocean Parkway, Ocean Pines.

(May 23, 2019) With forest green oversized scissors, Pam Stansell cut the ceremonial ribbon to the applause of public officials and hospice providers to officially open the Macky and Pam Stansell Coastal Hospice House on Wednesday, May 15.

Stansell House is the region’s first residential hospice facility, providing care to patients with life-limiting illnesses who are no longer safe at home or who need more care than a family can safely provide.

“Today marks the end of our planning and the start of our serving,” Coastal Hospice President and CEO Alane Capen said. “More than 2,000 people across the lower shore and the state of Maryland came together to turn this dream into reality, and we honor them.”

The three-story, 26,000-square-foot Stansell House sits on 11 acres at 1500 Ocean Parkway in Ocean Pines. The building provides a main floor residential hospice, with palliative care facilities on the top floor and staff facilities on the ground floor. It also provides 12 patient rooms, a family room, kitchen, spa and a scenic backyard view of the Isle of Wight Bay.

More than 30 full-time employees will provide care and support at the facility.

“This facility is strictly residential,” Capen said. “Patients who live here would otherwise be cared for at home if they had an able caregiver. People who come here are folks who are going to need help with bathing, getting their meals and getting medications on time.

“I can’t think of a more gorgeous place to be in the last weeks or a couple of months of life,” she continued.

In addition to the grand opening, the event celebrated Macky and Pam Stansell for their generosity and contributions toward the project. Over the years, the Stansells, who own Macky’s Bayside Bar and Grill on 54th Street bayside, have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to hospice and the facility and have raised thousands more through charity events.

In 2017, the Stansells wrote a check for $72,250, to push the project across the original $5 million threshold established at the beginning of its donations campaign. Together, they’re responsible for more than $900,000 in gifts to the campaign.

In honor of the couple’s longstanding support, the hospice board of directors voted to name the building The Macky and Pam Stansell House at Coastal Hospice at the Ocean.

For Macky, the facility is more than just a building, it is the embodiment of the dignity and comfort every person should have at the end of life.

“When my wife’s mother was ill with cancer many years ago, I had never heard of hospice,” Macky said. “My wife and her sister wanted their mom to move in with us and at first I said, ‘Absolutely not!’ I did not want to have our lives – or hers – interrupted this way.

“But it turned out to be the most amazing gift,” he continued. “I will forever be grateful for hospice and how it made her last days so much more than I imagined.”

The architect for the project was Becker Morgan Group, the general contractor was Whiting Turner and the landscape design was done by Sposato Landscape Company Inc.

Led by co-chairs Dirk Widdowson and Macky Stansell, Coastal Hospice has raised more than $6.5 million to date, including two $500,000 bond bills from the State of Maryland spearheaded by then Sen. Jim Mathias.

Being the only residential coastal hospice service within the lower shore and will provide care for four counties, the Coastal Hospice board is proud to open the facility to anyone in need.

“The fact of the matter is the hospice residents’ concept does not exist anywhere around here,” former board chairman Mike Dunn said. “Coastal hospice is bringing it to the community of Delmarva. And this is really, really exciting. We look forward to everyone enjoying the next iteration of what Coastal Hospice is, which is about life.”

Founded in 1980, Coastal Hospice is a private, nonprofit organization providing health care, hospice services, palliative care, bereavement support, education and training for patients and their families in Worcester, Wicomico, Somerset and Dorchester counties. Coastal Hospice cares for patients in their home, nursing homes, assisted living facilities or at Coastal Hospice at the Lake.

For more information or to donate toward the Macky and Pam Stansell House of Coastal Hospice at the Ocean, visit www.CoastalHospice.org or www.StansellHouse.org