About
About Mandeville House
Nurse-led. Family-run. A better alternative in long-term care.
Our Story
A daughter looking for the right place for her mother.
In the early 2000s, Mavis Payne — a Jamaican-born mother of three, working in the telecommunications industry, and beginning her transition into nursing — was searching for a senior living community for her own mother. What she found wasn't good enough.
So in 2000, she built her own. Mandeville House opened in Waldorf, Maryland — named for the Jamaican parish her family calls home, and built around a single idea: the kind of care she would want for the woman who raised her. By August 2003, the facility was formally licensed by the Maryland Office of Health Care Quality.
26 years later, Mavis is still the one walking the halls. Still the delegating nurse. Still the first call when something matters.
Beryl Agatha White
The woman who made all of this possible.
Mavis's mother, Beryl Agatha White, lived to 100. She was a caregiver herself — by trade, by temperament, by faith. She answered her neighbors' health questions, cooked their meals when they were sick, and taught the children of her community their Scripture.
Mavis built Mandeville House while raising three children and personally caring for Beryl Agatha through her elder years. Everything you see here — the standard of care, the family atmosphere, the way staff know each resident's name and story — traces back to one woman.
Our sister home-care agency, Agatha Home Health, is named after her.
Meet the Director
Mavis Payne, R.N.
Director, Clinical Administrator & Delegating Nurse
Mavis Payne is the founder and Director of Mandeville House, LLC, where she serves as the clinical administrator and delegating nurse. She graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1997 with a B.A. in Psychology. After 22 years in the telecommunications, satellite communications, and customer operations fields, she pivoted into geriatric nursing — earning her Registered Nurse license from the Maryland Board of Nursing in 2008.
Mavis opened Mandeville House in 2000. The facility received its formal Maryland Office of Health Care Quality license in August 2003 (License #08AL0060-H, Registration #8390).
In 2015, Mavis co-founded the Coalition of Assisted Living Providers (CoALP), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to deliver effective health care and human services to seniors and to foster advances in public health and social services across Maryland.
She remains a pillar of the Charles County community — well-respected, well-liked, and reachable.
What That Means For Your Family
You're not getting a chain. You're getting Mavis.
National assisted living chains have shareholders, regional offices, and standardized protocols. Mandeville House has a registered nurse who lives in the community, knows every resident by name, and personally signs off on every care plan.
The difference shows up in how problems get handled, how families are communicated with, and how the day-to-day actually feels. We're not the right fit for every family — but for the families we are right for, the difference is unmistakable.