Posted July, 2026

The Business of Staying

The Reenders family’s enduring commitment, from first homes to final chapters.

There is a photograph that doesn’t exist, but perhaps it should. After all, maybe the clearest picture of the Reenders family’s legacy is the one that was never taken.

On one side of the street stands a modest brick home in Grand Haven, built in 1952 by Arthur Reenders Construction. A little boy, his grandson Scott, heads across the street toward the neighbor’s house. Inside, Ms. Swiftney is waiting with cookies and milk, just as she always is.

Place another photograph beside it.

The little boy has become one of the leaders of Heritage Property Management. Ms. Swiftney is nearing one hundred years old. The house where she raised her family has become difficult to manage and, after years of insisting she would never leave it, she finally agrees to tour Grand Pines Assisted Living Center.

Scott gives her the tour himself. He points out a room at the end of the hallway with an extra window and a quiet view. A week later, he stops in to see how she’s settling.

“I love it here,” she tells him. “I don’t know why I fought it so long.” She smiles. “It’s high time you call me Katherine.”

On her one hundredth birthday, Scott picks her up in his father’s 1927 LaSalle and takes her out for vanilla ice cream.

Most companies would call that customer retention. The Reenders family would never think to. To them, it’s simply what happens when you spend nearly eighty years growing up alongside the same community.

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Values Come First.

When people tell the story of Heritage Property Management, they often begin in 1946, when Arthur Reenders started Arthur Reenders Construction. Scott usually starts earlier, at a piano factory.

Arthur worked at Story & Clark, building pianos alongside men who were paid by the piece. The faster he worked, the more worried his coworkers became. Higher production could mean higher quotas for everyone.

“They cornered him,” Scott recalls. “They said, ‘You’ve got to slow down.'”

Arthur couldn’t make sense of it.

“He couldn’t really justify that in his head.”

So he kept working at his own pace. Every day, he quietly gave one completed piece to another worker who couldn’t keep up.

Scott has told that story for years. When he finishes, he shrugs a little and says, “That’s kind of where we still live.”

A Changing Community.

Arthur lost his job during the Great Depression. Recently married, with a new house and young family, he met with the bank instead of walking away. The family moved to a small, rented farmhouse, raised animals to survive, and rented out the house he had built: always believing they would return.

“That was kind of his entrepreneurial spirit,” Scott shares.

“That was kind of his entrepreneurial spirit.”

By the time World War II ended, Arthur had made another decision. West Michigan was filling with young families; Returning veterans wanted somewhere to begin their lives. Arthur began building modest houses throughout Grand Haven to meet the needs of the changing community.

Many of the people who moved into those houses remained in the community for the rest of their lives. The Reenders did too.

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An Opportunity to Serve.

The story of Heritage Property Management isn’t really about moving from construction into senior living. It is about what happened to the people after the houses were built. The children who played in those backyards eventually left for college. The parents who once shoveled snowy driveways found winter a little heavier every year. The stairs became steeper.

The homes that once represented independence gradually became harder to maintain.

Scott remembers watching longtime Grand Haven residents leave because nearby senior housing didn’t exist.

“We saw a lot of people starting to move from Grand Haven to Holland. We’re like, ‘Why should they have to move?’…People want to stay in their own community.”

“We saw a lot of people starting to move from Grand Haven to Holland. We’re like, ‘Why should they have to move?'”

The answer slowly reshaped the company.

Arthur Reenders Construction expanded into multifamily housing. Later came affordable senior housing, independent living, assisted living, and memory care.

Scott describes the transition almost as though it were inevitable.

“As this population that my grandfather started building for post-World War II aged, that’s when we decided… this is probably an opportunity for us to continue to serve that same population.”

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For Your Grandma.

Arthur had a saying. “I won’t build anything I wouldn’t live in myself.”

“I won’t build anything I wouldn’t live in myself.”

Dennis Reenders, Scott’s brother, says it differently. When he walks construction sites, he reminds crews, “You’re building this for your grandma.” If something isn’t right, he’ll stop right away and say, “Would your grandma put up with that kind of quality?” His straightforward approach keeps company values front and center.

The apartment isn’t a mindless production. It’s a carefully crafted experience with compassion in mind.

Scott still walks the communities.

He notices landscaping. Paint. Lighting. Small repairs.

He smiles as he explains why. “We want people to be proud of where they live from the moment they enter the parking lot.”

“We want people to be proud of where they live from the moment they enter the parking lot.”

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Pull Weeds, Not Strings.

Inside the family, the expectations were no different. No one arrived with a title. In the Reenders family it’s commonplace for children to pull weeds, run lawn crews, work construction, or learn maintenance. It’s all about being a well-rounded and experienced leader in the future.

Scott was sixteen when he was running the grounds crew. “We weren’t given any golden opportunity or any important position. We were taught, you start here and you prove that you can go up to here.”

The fourth generation hears much the same thing. “You don’t get to say, ‘This is what I want to do.’ We’re going to say this is what the company needs from you.”

“You don’t get to say, ‘This is what I want to do.’ We’re going to say this is what the company needs from you.”

Later in the interview, Scott reflects on another lesson, one he learned much later in life. A friend once told him, “They’re never going to fill your spot unless you step out of it.”

Scott eventually did. He began spending winters in Puerto Rico, joining meetings remotely instead of leading every decision himself.

“They had to step up,” he says. “It’s been good for me. It’s been good for them.”

He laughs as he says he’s ready for retirement. Then he pauses.

“You can delegate authority,” he says, “but you can’t delegate responsibility.”

The words linger for a moment.

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Close to Home.

Senior living has a way of making business feel very personal. Scott talks about college friends whose parents now live in Heritage communities. He talks about doctors he has known his entire life becoming residents.

His own aunt, now ninety-eight, lives in one of their communities. When he visits, she tells him the staff is wonderful. The meals are great.

“It’s rewarding serving people that I’ve known all my life,” says Scott

“It’s rewarding serving people that I’ve known all my life.”

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Familiar Stories, Shared for Generations.

As the interview winds down, the questions become less about buildings and more about family.

Behind the camera, Melissa Satterfield, a fourth-generation leader in the business, has been standing quietly for the entire interview. She smiles at familiar stories, laughs at family memories, and listens as though hearing them all over again.

Scott clears his throat. For a moment he says nothing. His eyes shimmer.

“I’ve worked alongside all of them, you know, my grandfather, kids, and my nephews and my niece.”

Another pause.

“It’s rewarding.”

He smiles.

“It’s challenging, but it’s rewarding.”

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Still Standing.

The house Arthur Reenders built in 1952 is still standing. So is the community that grew up around it.

And somewhere between that front porch, a bowl of vanilla ice cream, and a quiet room at Grand Pines is a story that was never really about construction at all. It is about serving long enough that the people whose first homes you built would one day trust you to help them feel at home again.

It was about the business of staying.

Learn more about Heritage Senior Communities at HeritageSeniorCommunities.com.

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