Sentosa CEO Ben Landa Sells Queens Nursing Home for $47M

Sentosa Care CEO Benjamin Landa sold off a piece of his for-profit nursing home empire in Far Rockaway, Queens, to a new operator.

A limited liability company tied to nursing home executives Robert and Norman Rausman bought the 183-bed facility at 22-41 New Haven Avenue for $47.3 million, according to property records made public Monday.

Neither Landa nor the Rausmans responded immediately to requests for comment.

Norman Rausman, along with several other members of the Rausman family, is a partner in the Northern Manhattan Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in East Harlem and the Manhattanville Health Care Center in the Bronx, according to his LinkedIn page and public records. 

The younger Robert Rausman lives at the same Monsey, N.Y., address as Norman, according to property records and a source with knowledge of the deal.

Landa, for his part, bought his first nursing home in 1987 and later grew to become one of the biggest nursing home operators in New York state, with a portfolio spanning as many as two dozen facilities, although its exact size is unclear since ownership of for-profit nursing homes is difficult to trace, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan think tank Empire Center. But his company, Sentosa, has a spotty record with regulators. 

In March, a Nassau County Supreme Court judge found Landa and several others liable for neglecting patients at the Cold Spring Hills nursing home on Long Island and misleading state health officials on how he financed the $65.8 million deal to acquire the real estate for Cold Springs in 2016. Judge Lisa Cairo ordered Landa to pay $500,000 in restitution and allow an independent overseer to monitor operations at Cold Spring Hills. 

The judgment came after New York Attorney General Letitia James claimed the owners of Cold Springs diverted Medicare funding and endangered patients by cutting staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

But Sentosa Care’s problems date back much further. The company managed to evade state regulators for decades despite racking up 20 federal fines for deficient care throughout its facilities, according to a 2015 ProPublica investigation.

That scrutiny didn’t stop Landa from continuing to expand. He bought the 49,021-square-foot senior care facility at New Haven Avenue in Far Rockaway for $3 million in 2016 through New Surfside Realty, a real estate platform Landa formed in 2015, according to property records and New York State’s business registry.

Landa and Robert Bleier, a business partner, both own a 50 percent stake in the for-profit residential health care company that operates the four-story facility, according to state records. Bleier could not be reached for comment.

The owners put up new signage shortly after the 2016 deal, changing the facility’s name from New Surfside Nursing Home to Caring Family Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, according to Google Maps. The spot again changed its name in 2023 to Premier Nursing and Rehab Center of Far Rockaway.

Forest Healthcare Properties’ Jeffrey Vegh and Joe Schiff brokered the Far Rockaway deal for the seller and declined to comment. The buyer did not use a broker.

Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.