auburn – Schooner Retirement Community has changed hands.

John Orestis and his spouse Barbra Crowley have purchased Schooner from Sarto Sasseville of Lewiston and Gail Sasseville of Auburn.

Schooner Retirement Community is a 165-unit independent, assisted and residential care campus located on Stetson Road in Auburn. Opened in 1987, Schooner provides people in the Lewiston-Auburn area with retirement living options.

Orestis and Crowley are Lewiston natives with lifelong ties to the community. Orestis was a practicing attorney in Lewiston and Auburn for 19 years and is now a principal and CEO of North Country Associates, a long-term care provider with 22 nursing facilities located throughout Maine. He was Lewiston’s mayor from 1973-75.

Crowley is a long-term care and customer service consultant and is former executive director of Central Maine Medical Center’s Horizons 55 program and the RSVP program.

They said they intend to operate Schooner with the same attention to care and customer service that has earned the facility its reputation. No changes in staff are planned.

The purchase – the price and terms weren’t disclosed – was facilitated with funds loaned by Love Funding Corp. of Boston and insured by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Additional funding was provided by Northeast Bank of Lewiston. Legal services were provided by the law firms of Bonneau and Geismar of Lewiston, Trafton and Matzen of Auburn and Preti, Flaherty of Portland.