While the war of words over the imminent closure of the Motion Picture and Television Home hospital and long-term care center has been loud, messy and visceral, the grounds are nothing but tidy tranquility.
During an exclusive tour, an elderly resident zips around in her electric scooter-chair, and pauses to reflect on the controversy over the closure. “It’s sad,” she says. “It feels wrong.”
Officials from the MPTF opened the doors of the 48-acre facility for the first time last week to TheWrap, hoping to make clear why they find it necessary to close the hospital and long-term care faciility in a bid to preserve the MPTF's other activities.
Today the Wasserman Campus remains a quiet oasis of cottages, a hospital, lawns and pepper trees in Woodland Hills, and it's not hard to understand why its remaining residents and their families are fighting to stay. A stunt police car recently parked at the front entrance – and which some residents complained was meant to intimidate - has been removed.
Still, emotions are running high over the closure and many of Hollywood’s biggest names wait to see how this embarrassing chapter will end.
“No one with a connection to the home is happy with the decision (to close),” says Ken Scherer, CEO of the Motion Picture and Television Fund Foundation, referring not only to the affected residents, but to the fund’s board and the Hollywood community that supports it. “The whole process has not been fun.”
Scherer seems pained in general -- and he admits that the police car was “not a good idea.” MPTF officials did not allow visiting Wrap journalists to speak to residents, who were notably few in number. (Monday Update: an MPTF spokeswoman disputed that residents were barred from speaking to TheWrap; the strong impression left during the visit was otherwise. Photos of residents were explicitly banned, and no residents were present during the tour.)
The fund’s grounds reflect the dual personality of the campus. On one end of the property is the new, $18 million Saban Center for Health and Wellness, which opened in 2007 and features the Jodie Foster Aquatic Pavilion. The center, whose hallways are lined with photographs by Roddy McDowall and also boasts a state-of-the-art gym, a multipurpose room and administrative offices. Nearby stand the post-modern Fran and Ray Stark Villas.
At the other end of the grounds lie the home’s original studio and one-bedroom cottages, along with a residential lodge and Harry’s Haven, a 30-bed dementia unit.
The MPTF hospital, a portion of which opened as recently as 1989, connects to the Jack Skirball Health Center (whose outpatient services, along with Harry’s Haven, are not closing). The state of California has ordered MPTF to earthquake-retrofit. The fund says this would be prohibitively expensive, estimating it would cost about $15 million.
And Scherer says the fund is now losing $1 million a month with the underused hospital remaining open.
