Residents on the second floor of the Health Center at St. Joseph of the Pines know when John Valentine has something special in store for them.

There’s a smell in the air that snakes around the corners and down the corridors. It makes its way to nurses’ stations and ripples into the rooms of the unsuspecting population.

The aroma signals something significant is happening. Be it Hungarian goulash or Italian wedding soup, Valentine’s efforts over the stove, slow cookers, cutting boards and electric frying pans merit accolades from Health Center residents and associates.

“John loves cooking his favorite soups and sharing them with the residents and staff,” says Judy McLeod, activities associate. “He always uses fresh vegetables and prime cuts of meats. Nothing but the best will do for those he shares his creations with.”

McLeod makes sure Valentine has everything he needs to assure everyone that all orange, green, purple, red and yellow ingredients in his mouth-watering concoctions that simmer for hours culminate with tasteful, tender morsels for dozens to enjoy.

At age 83, Valentine is now making his mark at St. Joseph of the Pines and mimicking his reputation — albeit on a smaller scale — as he did for decades in Pinehurst and surrounding areas. However, from 1967 until four years ago, brick and mortar were his ingredients of choice.

“I had myself a lucky heart attack,” says Valentine. “I say lucky because I was already in the hospital for a tumor on my lung when it hit. Something’s going to grab me one of these days, but in the meantime I feel great.”

He followed in his father’s footsteps as a general contractor in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pa. He moved to Moore County 43 years ago. He doesn’t lament the fact that he forfeited the chance to become a millionaire.

“All my friends stayed up there. I guess if I had stayed there I would have wound up being a millionaire too, but that wasn’t what I wanted,” says Valentine.

He has his signature on houses he built all over Pinehurst, Southern Pines and Pinewild. It’s been four years since he planned, designed and built a home for someone else, but the pride he feels in his achievements is long-lasting.

“I’m very satisfied in my accomplishments, and long after I’m gone the homes I built here and up north will still be standing,” he says.

His imprint is on every one of his homes, from the pouring of the cement to the last nail in the molding.

“I was a hands-on person,” he says. “I never built more homes than I could completely supervise, so I’d usually have only four or five homes under construction.”

Locally, one of the most memorable for him is a house in Pinewild made of stucco and stone. The largest was up north, which measured 8,000 square feet. The most elaborate of his homes stands in Pinewild, recognizable by the custom-made double front doors.

“What a gorgeous set of doors,” he remembers. “But, I don’t have a favorite because I loved pretty much everything I built.”

He admittedly spent a lot of time on the golf course and surrounded himself with the “best subcontractors he could find,” he says. “We worked very well together and had a lot of fun in the process.”

Valentine was married to his first wife for 39 years. He had just gotten out of the service and she was still in high school when they met. He has two children 14 years apart.

“Unfortunately, the good Lord decided he wanted her before we were ready to part,” he says.

During their marriage she developed her talents as a very gifted artist and seamstress, and Valentine is as happy to extol her virtues and achievements as he is about talking of his own.

Four years after the death of his first wife, Valentine married a lady 24 years his junior.

“It was a great marriage, but she missed Texas and my heart was here in North Carolina,” says Valentine a bit regretfully.

Another facet of his life showing still more talents added a lot of pounds to the tall, lean stature of a man who is now a little less upright and somewhat slower in pace.

“I was about 12 years old when my mother got sick, and my father took over cooking,” says Valentine. “I was his cleanup guy and assistant. I learned I loved food and loved all different kinds of food. Now, as then, I taste-test everything, and at my heaviest I was 240 pounds.”

His love of cooking evolved into entrepreneurship, with him staying out of the kitchen as the owner of a restaurant — the Williamsburg Inn.

“I had the head chef from a major national food company,” he says. “He was very good, but very temperamental. When he threw a raw steak at a waitress and sent her out of the kitchen in tears, I fired him on the spot. I cooked for almost 100 people that night.”

Turning 83 years old March 14 in the Health Center of St. Joseph of the Pines was just another step in a succession of luckless cards Valentine has been dealt these past few years.

However, his knowledge that St. Joseph associates relish his company, that other residents look forward to the days he cooks up a storm all morning long so they can be served the fruits of his labor, and the fact he has some special volunteers who visit him often and share stories on subjects they have in common, gives him comfort and reassurance that he has left a legacy in Moore County and a lasting impression on hundreds, not to mention the lives he has touched at St. Joseph Health Center.

Jeralie Andrews is the volunteer director for St. Joseph of the Pines.