When Lezlie Jones, OD, bought the practice where she worked for more than a decade, she set out to change more than ownership. The Worthington, Minnesota, optometrist turned a dated, compartmentalized clinic into Joyful Eyes Optometry, a colorful, pattern-forward space inspired by Grand Hotel maximalism and designed to emphasize warmth and hospitality over clinical formality.
Dr. Jones’ path to optometry began in high school, when an anatomy class turned her interest in science into a career choice. “We dissected a cow eyeball, which sounds disgusting, but I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” she says. After earning her optometry degree at Indiana University School of Optometry and serving three years as an OD in the U.S. Air Force, she joined the Worthington practice as an associate in 2014. The clinic, a fixture in the community since 1950, had been owned and operated by successive groups before she and her husband purchased it in 2024.
“What better word describes my practice than joyful?” Dr. Jones says. “I wanted people to walk in and feel happy that they’re here.” This philosophy drove a top-to-bottom renovation of a building whose flow had become awkward after years of piecemeal additions and whose look had not been updated since the early 1990s.
A COFFEE SHOP? A SPEAKEASY?
Jones credits her design spark to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island and Dorothy Draper’s maximalist style. She worked with Sarah DeWitt from DeWitt Designs in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to translate that influence into a practice that feels boutique rather than clinical. “The first time I walked into that hotel, I was floored by its beauty,” Dr. Jones says. “I love color, I love pattern, I love flowers and plants. And I wanted to bring that all into the practice. As Elsie de Wolfe put it, ‘I am going to make everything around me beautiful—that will be my life.’”
The result is unapologetically vibrant. A neon Joyful Eyes Optometry sign greets visitors when they walk through the front door. The reception desk—what Dr. Jones calls a “candy lane desk”—wraps the entry like a hospitality counter. Walls are covered in patterned wallpaper and painted in curated palettes supplied by the designer. Furniture includes custom pieces, notably a round settee sofa with a teal leather seat and floral center cushion that Dr. Jones notes as a favorite.
Design choices were made with both look and function in mind: bold wallpaper, intentional color schemes and custom furniture create a distinctive patient experience, while an open layout and updated pretesting support efficient clinical flow. The optical area is staffed by at least two opticians at any given time, and the practice operates with a large support team for a single-full-time-doctor model.
“I made a practice I’d want to live in,” Dr. Jones says of her design choices. “I designed the space to reflect who I am, and patients loving it is a welcome bonus.” Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with first-time visitors often mistaking the clinic as a boutique coffee shop or salon or speakeasy—a compliment in Dr. Jones’s view. “I specifically told my designer I didn’t want the space to look like an eye clinic,” she says.
A PHASED RENOVATION
Joyful Eyes Optometry occupies roughly 4,400 square feet that Dr. Jones reconfigured to merge the optical and clinical areas into a single, flowing layout. The renovation was phased: the optical area was completed first, then clinical lanes were shifted and walls opened to create a continuous space. The project required structural work and close coordination with an ophthalmology group that shared the building during the transition.
Of the clinic’s four exam lanes, Dr. Jones uses two and is seeking an associate to fill the remaining two. Demand is strong as appointments are booked out nearly a year, drawing patients from southwest Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota.
The unique exam lanes are a playful example of the clinic’s personality: one is black and gold, another pink and others are green and blue. Wallpaper and custom finishes change throughout the clinic so “you can walk into any space and find something different,” Dr. Jones says.
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Dr. Jones updated a number of technologies during the redesign, including a new Optos Monaco ultra-widefield imaging system, modernized tonometry and lens-measurement tools. A planned upgrade of a Cirrus OCT remains on hold until she finds another optometrist to join her.
SMALL-TOWN CARE WITH BIG DESIGN
At Joyful Eyes Optometry, design is not mere decoration but part of the practice’s identity and how it communicates care—a conviction Dr. Jones lives by and sums up in her personal motto, “A cheerful heart is good medicine” (Proverbs 17:22). Translating the feeling of walking into the Grand Hotel for the first time into her Worthington practice was also a way to honor the location’s legacy.
For small-town practitioners contemplating bold design, Dr. Jones’s experience underscores two lessons: personal vision matters, and design can be a tool to reflect that vision while supporting clinical care. “I like to pride myself on what we do in our office,” she says. The bright colors and inviting atmosphere at Joyful Eyes Optometry have become a signal that small-town eye care can be both clinically sophisticated and joyfully designed.
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