History

When Jim McGovern retired from Sylvania in 1964, he began searching for a community-oriented business he and his wife Mary could start. He had come to Hillsboro a decade earlier with the first dozen or so Sylvania employees to start the company’s New Hampshire operation. In his retirement he was hoping to establish a business that would serve the community he had come to call home. Eventually, he decided on something that was a novel idea at the time: a nursing home.

So the McGoverns moved their family to a new house on Bible Hill, renovated their original Victorian home on School Street, and added rooms for 30 residents to the rear of the property. It was an ideal location for an elderly residence, within walking distance of the downtown and near the schools and churches, and very much at the center of the community. The idea was to create a place that would be a home rather than an institution.

Eventually the business was passed along to the McGovern’s daughter Anne-Marie and her husband David Irwin, and then to their son Andrew, so that Hillsboro House has remained truly a family operation spanning three generations. The original Victorian house remains, but the rest of the building has been expanded twice. The scope of services has grown from the original concept of supported residential care to include 24 hour nursing service, a complete range of rehabilitative therapies, Medicare paid post-hospital recuperative and rehab care, respite services, and long term care. In fact, Hillsboro House offers exactly the same services as big institutions, but in a much different environment.

The size of the building and the range of services have grown over the six decades that Hillsboro House has been caring for seniors from the Contoocook Valley, but the original concept hasn’t changed at all. Hillsboro House is still very much a part of the community, and a place elderly individuals in need of nursing and rehabilitation care can call home.