Gilly’s House Offers Hope to Men in Recovery
By Luke Schmaltz, VOICES Newsletter Editor
Barbara Gillmeister and her husband Dave are the founders and facilitators of Gilly’s House, a sober living facility in Wrentham.
Their son, Steven “Gilly,” died of a heroin overdose on October 24, 2016. In 2018, the facility opened and has since been providing a safe, sober environment where men in recovery can access vocational, educational, and social resources for personal growth.
“Steven struggled for a very long time,” Barbara begins. “I don’t think any parent really knows when their child started, but it was probably 10 or so years. “Steven passed away when he was 25. He had just come back from rehab in California. He was on his way to a recovery house in Portland, Maine. The problem is, in that age bracket, everybody wants everything instantly. He was going to be an assistant manager at a recovery facility in Maine, but he relapsed while he was home and died.”
“A few months later, someone made a donation in Steven’s name to the SAFE Coalition. It wasn’t a huge amount, maybe a few hundred dollars, but that was the catalyst. They contacted me and asked what we wanted to do in his memory with that money. So, we sat down and considered things like having a guest speaker at a high school or hosting a golf tournament, but those ideas didn’t really sit right with me. Then someone said, ‘You could always start a sober house.’ I said, ‘Wow, great idea.’ That means so much to me because it meant so much to him.”
One Step at a Time
“We looked around and found a property right down the street from us that we’ve been passing by for 25 years. It was the Sheldonville Nursing Home and it had been vacant for 17 years. It was dated inside but they had kept the heat on because it had a sprinkler system, so it wasn’t falling apart. It did have old lady wallpaper, but we updated it with paint and flooring.”
“Gilly’s House is about a mile from my house, and a mile past that is my son’s best friend’s house. Kyle and Steven used to walk back and forth from Kyle’s house to our house and they would always pass by the Sheldonville Nursing Home. Back then it was vacant. After we bought the house, Kyle told me they used to stop in front of it and say, ‘If we had all the money in the world, what would we do with this house?’ Since we purchased the property in 2018, lots of incredible things like that have happened.”
“It was difficult to find financing because we had no history of running a sober house,” Barbara continues. “At that time there was more stigma than there is today. Luckily, my husband was in the mortgage business, so he did the shopping around to banks. We finally found a bank, Milford National, and they said, ‘Yeah, we want to partner with you and do something for the community.’ So, they wrote us a mortgage.”
It Takes a Village
Barbara explains how, with no background in running a recovery facility, the Gillmeisters were able to surround themselves with experienced professionals who helped them realize their vision. “We are a nonprofit with a board of directors,” she says. “At that time, everyone on the board was in the field. I had David Moore who owned Charlie House in Waltham. He gave us tremendous direction for creating the structure of the house. I had Steven Spiewakowski who was a probation officer at Wrentham District Court, who has been a great friend of the house. They came down and did work on the house, they painted, one of the judges even showed up to help. We surrounded ourselves with people who knew things we didn’t. They helped to create everything, all the structure, the paperwork, the rules, and the guidelines. We didn’t let anything stand in our way.”
There is no kind of funding for sober houses. Insurance doesn’t pay for the guys to live at the house. The kitchen needed to be redone. It was an old industrial kitchen and after all that time, the stoves were all rusted. We wanted a family home, so we did get money from MassHousing. It was a grant, and we re-did the entire kitchen. One of the reasons the nursing home got shut down was because the septic system had failed. Fixing it cost $60,000 and the previous owner cost-shared that with us. Everything in the house has been donated. It’s a very homey-feeling house. We have 21 men as residents, and we are the only sober house in Massachusetts that is staffed 24/7 by men in long-term recovery. I think that has been a huge piece for us because there is always someone there.”
A Process of Inspiration
The process of buying and renovating the property, and then opening Gilly’s House was an instrumental part of the Gillmeisters’ grief journey. “It was a huge piece for us,” Barbara says. “It has become a huge piece for a lot of people. Gilly’s House is a place of hope. The first weekend we owned the house we had a couple come into the house who said, ‘We heard about Gilly’s House at church this morning, and we were wondering if we could dedicate a room to the memory of our son, whom we lost six months ago.’
This encounter inspired the Gillmeisters to dedicate every room in Gilly’s House to someone's son who died of substance use-related causes. Every door features a placard with the room’s namesake, while the interior décor reflects the hobbies and pursuits of the deceased son. “The parents totally took over those bedrooms and decorated them, picked the colors, painted them, chose the furniture, and they did it in a way that exemplified their child. One family’s son was a fisherman, so they painted the walls blue and one of his fishing rods is hanging up in the bedroom. Another parent’s son was an outdoorsman, so the room has green walls and pictures of the outdoors.”
“This helps these families in the same way it helps me. They can no longer help their child, but maybe they can help someone else from having to go through what they went through. For the longest time, people would just show up in the driveway because they wanted to tell their story. They knew Gilly’s House was a safe place to talk and no one was going to judge them or think, ‘Oh, you must have been a bad parent and that’s why your kid died.’”
Special Events for the Bereaved
“The staff and the people who dedicated the rooms became a really cohesive group, especially before COVID. We would do potluck dinners, we would laugh, we would cry, it was a safe place to be. At the time, there were no support groups for siblings, so we started an event called Supper with Siblings. They meet once a month and anyone who has lost a sibling is invited.”
“Another event we do is the Annual Mom’s Luncheon. It is coming up on November 20 and this year’s theme is Strong as a Mom: Moving Forward. Seating is limited and last year we had 80 moms. Everybody grieves differently, but so many people are stuck in their grief. Some find it hard to even get out of bed. We have guest speakers; moms who are in grief but have managed to find something positive to bring them out of the tragedy. Something they can do for other people.”
Admission criteria for Gilly’s House includes 40 days of sobriety from a recovery program. “We have people in the house right now anywhere from 19 to 69 years of age,” Barbara explains. “It is two to a room and everybody works. There are activities for the guys such as bowling, deep sea fishing, and soccer games. It is important to know that it is not just about going to meetings, but you have to learn how to have fun without drinking and without being high.”