Manhattan Beach since 2009, but the couple’s determination to implement a grander plan that encapsulates big-picture dreams is being realized at the 22-acre ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains portion of Agoura Hills. The Heins’ mission to create a haven for disabled adults is personal. Their son, Justin, experienced his first grand mal seizure just before he turned 2. Diagnosed with epilepsy and autism, Justin was gripped by grand mal seizures two to three times each day for the next 20 years. Sometimes the seizures were so violent his bones were broken. Life as the Heins knew it changed forever. Rose gave up a successful house-sitting business that enabled her to earn money and keep her kids close by. Billy hunkered down with his lighting business to make sure they could provide Justin the best care possible. Justin’s condition put the couple and their older son, Sam, in a constant state of alert. “It’s like having an intruder in your house with a gun and you never know if it’s going to go off,” Rose says. “It’s like we have PTSD.” The stress of raising a disabled child seeped into every aspect of the Heins’ family life. Socializing with friends became a struggle. Watching a TV show as a family was impossible. “As much as you try to take that child with autism or seizures (out), it didn’t really work for us,” Rose says. “It becomes easier not to go.” Rose realized she had to come to grips with the reality of her son’s disability. “There was a very distinct moment in my life when I knew there wasn’t going to be a cure, Justin’s condition wasn’t going to change,” she recalls. “In the floor-to-ceiling windows, he was standing there in the sunlight, looking out the window.” “A huge wave hit me and the only thought I had was he was always going to be standing on the other side of the glass. No football teams, no friends, no parties. At that moment I knew that I had to accept the fact that it was what it was.” But that didn’t mean she had to accept the limited choices in store for his future. Rose, a pretty, tool-belt-toting blonde, exudes a can-do attitude that is emblematic of her country girl upbringing. She fought to enroll Justin in a specific school—and won. As he grew, she sought a variety of services available for disabled adults, but the programs never seemed to provide quite enough. Then, in 2006, Rose took a trip to the Netherlands to visit her cousin, her namesake Rose, whose child is also disabled. “We always said we’ll never let our kids go, they’ll always be with us,” Rose says of her and her cousin’s fierce determination to protect their vulnerable children. But after Cousin Rose took California Rose on an outing to Maartenhuis, a sustainable farm for disabled adults, their outlooks changed.
I would go to the ends of the earth for my child, but it became bigger than that...