Carroll-Lewellen Funeral and Cremation Services is once again family owned. Something the owners say is rather unusual.
Northern Colorado only has a handful of funeral homes that are not part of corporate entities. In addition to Carroll-Lewellen, the only family owned funeral home in Longmont, one of three Loveland funeral homes is family owned and in Fort Collins, only two out of five are, Steve Vessey, owner of Vessey Funeral Service in Fort Collins said.
The personal touches are what Heath and Reanna Carroll and funeral home owner Steve Vessey said sets them apart from their corporate-owned competitors.
“We’re a family that takes care of family, and we’re in the people business, not the funeral business,” the Carrolls said.
Justine Greenlee experienced personal tragedy when Bonnie Skinner, a member of her chosen family, was murdered in a machete attack in August in Brighton.
Greenlee turned to Carroll-Lewellen for help with the funeral arrangements. She said she felt comfortable turning to the Carrolls since they had also helped with arrangements for the Watts family after Frederick resident Christopher Watts in 2018 killed his pregnant wife, Shanann, 34, and their daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3.
But the Carrolls’ experience with such tragedies wasn’t the main reason Greenlee said she felt strongly it was the right place.
“They’re very giving, selfless people and you can tell when you work with them. You just want to be friends with them,” she said.
It was the personal touches that made the difference, Greenlee said.
One such touch was the Carrolls’ care to ensure Skinners’ daughters could see their mother before cremation.
“Heath worked around the clock to make Bonnie presentable so they could say goodbye. So, it wasn’t the last memory of their mom lying in the driveway, murdered,” Greenlee said. “They were able to bring closure to her daughters.”
Relationship building is what led to the Carrolls’ ability to buy back the funeral home, which was sold to Carriage Services in 2017. When Carriage Services a few months ago decided to sell all of its funeral homes in Colorado, the buyer, who Heath Carroll had met two decades ago, got in touch.
“We were notified that the buyer was a friend of mine who owns a funeral home in Greeley. I trained him 20 years ago and brought him into the business,” Heath Carroll said. “He didn’t know that he was buying our place. So, right away, he called me and said, ‘Listen, if you and Reanna want your funeral home back, then I’ll keep Loveland and I want you guys to buy it back from me.’ He was adamant.”
Giving back to each other is one way locally owned funeral homes have supported each other, Vessey said.
“I have a competitor a mile from me, when we need help or they do, the help is always available,” he said.
The Carrolls and Vessey emphasized the importance of funeral homes giving back to their communities.
“As a locally owned community member with a warm heart, I will do anything to help my fellow citizens,” Vessey said.
One such way the Carrolls are helping out in the Longmont community is by offering space at no charge to the nonprofit Colorado Learning Center for Human Anatomy. They also are involved in their church, Grace Place in Berthoud, with a particular focus on working with youth groups. The funeral home sponsored three youth group members to help them create a summer camp in Mexico. They also support hospice and hospital organizations and area nursing homes.
