DePugh Nursing Center Sold for $5.4 Million

The money will go to the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation to fund other local needs

Jan. 15, 2026

By Beth Kassab

Zane Williams paid $5.4 million for the Gardens at DePugh Nursing Center and the dollars will go to the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation to fund charitable causes.

Rick Baldwin, who served as chairman of DePugh’s board of directors, said the nursing center association will be dissolved and the money from the sale will help support other local needs through the foundation.

Baldwin, who also serves as a trustee at the Morse Genius Foundation, did not confirm the sale price, which was listed on records for the Orange County Property Appraiser.

The new owner of the 1.7 acre property at 550 W. Morse Blvd is listed as Z 17, LLC, a company registered to Williams at the address of Z Properties.

Williams, who last week announced plans for a mixed-use development on the site, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the sale and how the proceeds will be used.

Baldwin said the Morse Genius Foundation supported the DePugh center over the years and he felt comfortable that it would also responsibly use the proceeds from the sale to fund other needs.

“Our mission was to take care of the less fortunate,” Baldwin said of DePugh, noting that mission aligns with the foundation’s history of giving.

According to its website, the foundation has also supported arts groups such as the local ballet and opera along with Rollins College, the University of Central Florida’s nursing college and social services groups such as the Boys and Girls Club, Grace Medical Home and others, including the Welbourne Nursery and Preschool in Winter Park and Winter Park Day Nursery.

The new development at the DePugh site will bring further change for the historically Black neighborhood west of Park Avenue that dates back to the city’s founding. The area has undergone significant gentrification over the past 25 years with the redevelopment of Hannibal Square and a number of larger homes replacing small, single-story houses.

The DePugh center opened in 1956 as the first state-approved nursing home where aging Black residents could seek care during segregation. The center was named for Mary Lee DePugh, who moved to Winter Park in 1937 to work for a white family she knew from the Chicago area and began advocating to provide health care to those in need as part of her work with the Ideal Woman’s Club, which she founded on the west side of the city. She died before the center opened.

Baldwin said he remains saddened by DePugh’s closure last year.

“I hate it that the nursing home had to close but you can pick up the paper every day and see what’s happening to Medicaid,” he said. 

Medicaid didn’t even cover half of a day’s care for residents by the time the center closed, he said.

“It just wasn’t sustainable the way they cut all those reimbursements,” he said. “We tried for years. It’s heartbreaking, but I know it’s happening all over the country, it’s not just here.”

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