Once upon a time, when John graduated from Eastern Medical School, we moved to Maine. Back in 2001, acupuncturists were rarely hired into positions, but most expected to open their own practices. We opened Jade April 1, 2001 on 195 Congress St on Munjoy Hill. John started working full time to build an acupuncture practice in our 600 square foot, 3 treatment room office. We had a small waiting area and office with an herbal pharmacy. At the time, our rent was $750/month and we had no idea if there would be patients to support our practice. There were a few other acupuncture practices in Maine, but acupuncture was not a highly utilized form of medicine at that time. John spent time building relationships in the community to learn what the needs were, how to build a business, run a business and continue to brush up on all things acupuncture. Nancy worked 4 days a week as a physical therapist at another clinic and one day a week for Jade as a massage therapist for fun. The community of Munjoy Hill was amazing in supporting our business and getting to know us.
There were so many occasions that the community really helped Jade and there are so many examples of how this formed our practice. For example, on July 11, 2001, our building had a fire. While there was no direct damage to our office, there was enough water and smoke damage that we needed to move out of the building while repairs were being made. Community business leaders on the East End were instrumental in connecting us to other businesses, City of Portland entities helped us to transition to a temporary office for a year. For that year, our office was located on Exchange Street. For those of you who remember Movies on Exchange, we could smell the popcorn every afternoon in our office above them!
When Jade first opened, it was a private pay endeavor, not accepting insurance. Our philosophy was to keep the cost low for patients. Additionally, with patients paying cash, they could have the expectation that we would be effective and efficient in their treatment and we could have the expectation that they would follow through consistently with treatment recommendations. We were generally successful in this, however, as we started building relationships with physicians, we found most patients expected insurance to cover the services that we offered and eventually we shifted to accepting insurance.
Then, we got our first fax machine! We were then receiving regular referrals from physicians and needing to communicate with insurances via fax. At that point, some of the Jade acupuncture patients and massage clients were interested in receiving physical therapy with Nancy at Jade. Nancy started cutting back on her PT work at the other clinic to add some hours to Jade. Over the course of a few years, Nancy consistently added hours at Jade until becoming full time with John.
After 5 years at our first location, we moved to 218 Washington Ave. Many will remember it as a cool little building that also had a shed next to it that looked like it might slide down the hill towards the Back Bay. The shed is still there. We had beautiful views of Back Bay and downtown Portland. It is also when we first introduced yoga at Jade. We were looking for ways we could offer and recommend wellness pursuits for patients as they completed courses of care. Yoga spaces were growing and we recognized that yoga offered options to promote flexibility, strength and mindfulness. We were happy to find Laragh Kavanagh as our first yoga instructor with a strong interest in working with our patients in a class setting. Eventually, as we started seeing more pregnant and postpartum patients, we offered prenatal yoga and Mom & baby yoga. Our practice and connections to Portland grew even stronger and acupuncture started becoming more sought after. This is when we started to be more collaborative within and outside our practice. Before long, we outgrew the office on 218 Washington Ave and we renovated and moved into 100 Fore Street.
On Fore St, Jade had 6 treatment rooms, a sizable yoga studio and comfortable physical therapy gym overlooking Portland Harbor. We had grown to add staff including acupuncturists and physical therapists, a billing specialist, office manager and receptionist. Jade had become more than we ever imagined and we continued to be in awe of our amazing staff, patients and relationships with other healthcare practitioners. We began to consider a second office with our first choice being in Brunswick.
In the spring of 2017, we opened our Brunswick office at 12 Windorf Circle. We were excited to find a quiet location with woods and trails behind the office. We were able to build out a yoga studio and 4 treatment rooms with a physical therapy gym space. Our colleagues were “all hands on deck”, helping us to open the office and having a smooth transition to see new patients in the new location. We now lovingly refer to this office as “camp”. One of our favorite offerings in Brunswick was our Forest Bathing class, taught by Cleo Wolf, also an acupuncturist.
By the fall of 2017, the building we were in at 100 Fore St sold to a developer and this area was eventually rebuilt to become the Wex Building among other businesses. There was a lot of drama around this move as we had planned on another 3 years at this location, but the developer had other ideas! By the fall of 2018, we moved into our current Portland location at 1023 Washington Ave. It was our first Portland office that was not located on the East End or the peninsula, so it was quite a change. We loved being on the peninsula, but as a growing city, found that a move offered our patients a little less traffic and better parking. All of our offices had a “homey” feel and 1095 Washington is no different. It is an old farmhouse with an attached carriage house. It required extensive renovation to have 7 treatment rooms, a PT gym, yoga studio and offices. Through most of our office transitions, we had our trusty architect, always willing to think outside the box to create comfortable treatment spaces.
Of course, so much has happened in our 23 years of Jade. There are always ups and downs and it is amazing how we have changed, Jade has changed and the world has changed during this time. We are so grateful for all of the patients, other healthcare practitioners and colleagues that keep us inspired and that we continue to learn from.
With gratitude,
John and Nancy