Salinas Californian - Office fit for a king
June 18, 2007
Patients entering the 110 Harden Parkway dental offices of Drs. Mark Reber and Delwin Hemingway do so with eyes wide open - and it's not because of pain in that upper molar.
No, it's the non-dental-office look of the place that takes them back a step.
It's the marble floors and the marble columns, the lion's head fountain and the bronze statuettes tucked into art niches.
"It's gorgeous, not that typical sterile dental office environment," said David Callahan, for 20 years a patient of Dr. Hemingway . . .
Patients enter the practice on marble floors. They pass through doors of inlaid glass.
The waiting room features a faux fireplace. In the courtyard, a fountain bubbles. A glass display case contains, not displays of dental floss and mouthwash, but a porcelain figurine of three women dancing.
"This all has kind of a Mediterranean feel," Reber said. "When you come in, it looks more like the Venetian (Hotel) in Las Vegas than a dental office."
Architecturally, the intent is to relax patients, he said.
It relaxes the staff, too, said Kimberly Lopez, a registered dental assistant.
"We love our new environment," Lopez said.
The goal of relaxing patients extends into the high-tech dental chairs which can give neck and shoulder massages.
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