Call it kismet. A half-century ago, as Princeton Hospital was looking to establish a community mental health center, a facility called Princeton House — just two miles up the road — was available.
The original Princeton House was envisioned in the late 1960s as a nursing and convalescent center for Broadway performers. The actors’ retreat never materialized, however, and Princeton House opened instead as an alcohol treatment center. Patients were scarce; financial losses mounted. By the spring of 1971, the owners were ready to sell.
Princeton Hospital’s board of trustees appreciated Princeton House’s potential to bring needed services to the community. A handshake and a $2.2 million check later, Princeton House was part of Princeton Hospital.
Hospital officials hosted a community open house on July 18, 1971 to celebrate the opening of a new Princeton House. Two days later, the first 30 patients were admitted.
The original building is still there, but the organization — now known as Princeton House Behavioral Health — has grown exponentially. Princeton Hospital, now Princeton Medical Center (PMC), and Princeton House are divisions of Penn Medicine Princeton Health, which has been part of the University of Pennsylvania Health System since 2018.
“Our board showed remarkable foresight by investing in behavioral health care at a time when it was often misunderstood and underappreciated,” said Princeton Health CEO James Demetriades. “Through five decades of devotion and innovation, our people built Princeton House into a regional behavioral health leader and a lifeline for our community.”
Marguerite Pedley, PhD, senior vice president, Princeton House Behavioral Health, said some things that make Princeton House special are intangible and can be difficult to articulate.
“But you feel it the moment you walk into any of our sites,” Pedley said. “We have a spirit of caring and compassion and quality that I think is unparalleled. It’s really our calling card.”
The Growth of a Community Resource
When Princeton House opened in 1971, it was a different era for behavioral health. Most people knew little about mental health or addictions, said Richard Wohl, who retired in 2019 after 29 years as the senior executive at Princeton House. Medications and treatment options were limited, and there was a social stigma to seeking help. Even in the medical community, there was little recognition of the connection between mental and physical health, Wohl said.
In its first full year of operation, Princeton House treated 487 inpatients. For comparison, Princeton House treated 3,778 inpatients and 5,081 outpatients in Fiscal Year 2019, the last full year before admissions dropped due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today, Princeton House operates a 116-bed inpatient center at its original building in Princeton; outpatient sites in Princeton, Hamilton, Moorestown, Eatontown, and North Brunswick; and two units at PMC in Plainsboro — a behavioral health Emergency Department and the Princeton Center for Eating Disorders.
Individuals admitted to Princeton House’s inpatient center need acute care for psychiatric issues, substance use disorders, or both. Some patients have medical health needs in addition to multiple psychiatric diagnoses.
Princeton House has a reputation, in the community and among behavioral health providers, as a place that can successfully treat individuals with complicated issues, said Neal Schofield, MD, who joined the organization in 1999 and has been its chairman of Psychiatry since 2009.
“From the folks I have spoken to who have gone through this and some of the families, I think they really see (Princeton House) as a best hope for a lot of people,” he said. “They see it as a refuge. They see it as a place where people can start their lives over again.”
Princeton House’s growth in size and in types of care got underway slowly at first. When now-retired executive Wohl joined Princeton House in 1990, it still operated only the one location. The following year, Princeton House opened its first dual diagnosis program to serve patients with co-occurring psychiatric and addiction issues.
That approach is now standard at Princeton House, where more than half of the patients have co-occurring disorders, Schofield said. Most psychiatrists on the
staff have multiple board certifications and are well-equipped to work with dually diagnosed patients.
Specialized Care for Patients’ Needs
Since 1991, programs for inpatient and outpatient treatment have become very specialized, based on both patient feedback and the latest scientific evidence. Princeton House has developed programs customized for seniors, children, adolescents, young adults, and both women and men who have experienced trauma. In 2013, Princeton House launched First Responder Treatment Services, an innovative inpatient offering for law enforcement officers, fire fighters, EMS, active military personnel, and veterans.
Princeton House’s outpatient services entail three to five days a week of full- or half-day treatment and serve two crucial roles: They can be a stepdown for patients who were hospitalized and are transitioning to home, or they can help avert hospitalizations for people in the community who are experiencing difficulties.
Over the years, as Princeton House developed new partial hospital and intensive outpatient programs, it opened satellite outpatient centers to bring those services closer to people across central and southern New Jersey. The newest center in Eatontown opened in 2015, and plans are underway to expand the outpatient center in North Brunswick, adding 8,000 square feet of space to accommodate the Women’s Program and Child/Adolescent Program.
“If you look back over the last 20 years, we have moved every center at least once,” said Peter Thomas, PhD, vice president, outpatient services. “And we’ve expanded the centers multiple times after we’ve moved. The growth has been very steady over many years.”
The tremendous growth of Princeton House over the last half century translates to a greater impact, helping more individuals cope with their behavioral health challenges and thrive. Princeton House closely tracks patient outcomes, comparing patients’ level of functioning at admission and upon discharge.
“When they leave, after six or eight weeks with us, they are markedly improved,” Thomas said.
Those results continued through the pandemic, even when outpatient programs were provided virtually.
The successful patient outcomes highlight Princeton House’s value as a community resource. No one is untouched by psychiatric or substance use issues, Thomas said.
“As a society, we’ve become more accepting of mental health treatment and substance use treatment as a part of life,” he said. “It’s less stigmatized because everyone ultimately is affected in some way. I think the pandemic, in particular, has highlighted the impact of isolation, loss, and fear. All those different things that we collectively have gone through bring us together to understand them in a different way.”
The People of Princeton House
The heartbeat of Princeton House Behavioral Health, according to Marguerite Pedley, PhD, senior vice president, is its people.
“You can have the finest quality service,” she said, “but if there isn’t a soul behind it and there isn’t a sense of that compassionate caring that’s really driving you toward excellence and innovation then it won’t have the same impact on our patients and our community.”
Robbi Alexander, PhD, APN, administrative director of psychiatric services, Princeton Health, and director of the Princeton Center for Eating Disorders, said Princeton House is its own community. Staff members tend to stay long-term and they get to know each other well. Alexander started at Princeton House in 1979 as a charge nurse. She has left several times for new opportunities over the past 42 years but, as she noted, she always comes back.
“I truly believe that Princeton House is the best continuum for mental health in this state certainly and probably in this whole tri-state area,” she said. “I’m pretty proud of that and our leaders who worked diligently to make that happen.”
Nancy Zorochin, a senior community relations representative, started with Princeton House as a nurse in 1980 and worked in admissions from 1988 to 2006. One of her fondest memories is a call she took from a man who had been an inpatient in 1980. He was memorable in part because he had a unique name. Twenty years later, he called admissions out of the blue.
“He said, ‘Princeton House saved my life and I wanted to say thank you,’” Zorochin recounted. “When he told me his name, I said, ‘I was your nurse.’ It was such an amazing moment. That’s so important in this job to know that people do get better. They do recover.”
Sonora Reynolds, DNP, RN, director of patient care services, has been with Princeton House for only one of its 50 years.
In 2020, she was living in New York and working a job she liked at Bellevue Hospital. She had never heard of Princeton House until she saw the posting for her current position. After a series of virtual interviews, she was invited to meet the staff. The interview lasted for hours. She was impressed that everyone she met — housekeepers, nurses, doctors, maintenance and engineering staff — was focused on quality care and meeting the patients’ needs.
“I didn’t think anything would ever compare to Bellevue until I came here,” Reynolds said. “Care is embodied here. It’s palpable. Everybody, in addition to providing great care, actually cares greatly. And that made me want to be here.”