CHAPEL HILL -- Seven years in the making, a new 40-bedroom house for adult hospital patients and their caregivers will open this month next to the Ronald McDonald House on Old Mason Farm Road.

SECU Family House, initially funded by the State Employees Credit Union Foundation in 2005, has finished a $7.5 million campaign, officials announced Tuesday. Crews are putting the finishing touches on the hospitality facility at 123 Old Mason Farm Road.

The house will provide lodging for pre- and post-surgical patients from UNC Hospitals' transplant, oncology, burn, eating disorders and trauma units.

The house will enable patients, family members and caregivers to stay together during lengthy stays that can stretch budgets and drain mental and emotional reserves. Until now some family members have slept in their cars or waiting rooms for weeks at a time.

"This facility for adult patients and families has been needed for many, many years now," board president Katie Early said. "Distance and expense should no longer create the hardships they have created for so many families who come to UNC Hospitals from all across the state."

The SECU Family House has raised $8.1 million in cash and in-kind gifts, enabling it to open debt-free, provide for a modest operating reserve and establish a $500,000 endowment.

The organization will now try to grow the endowment, to help pay the lodging costs for guests who can contribute only very minimally to its upkeep, and raise annual operating funds for 2008.

The campaign's success caps years of planning that began in 2001. The credit union's challenge grant was joined to a $1 million grant from the state of North Carolina; a $500,000 gift from UNC Hospitals; and a $500,000 gift from William and Gray Clark III of Tarboro.

Those gifts -- with a $171,500 Economic Development Initiative grant from Housing and Urban Development, sponsored by U.S. Rep. David Price, a $150,000 grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, and $100,000 gifts from Amgen, an anonymous donor, the Duke Endowment, RBC Centura, UNC Hospitals Volunteer Association, and Wachovia Foundation -- account for nearly two-thirds of the money raised.

With 16 gifts of $50,000 to $75,000 and 31 gifts of $25,000 to $35,000, the campaign secured an additional $1.7 million.

"SECU not only provided the impetus and kick-start the campaign needed, they also offered some critical leads and contacts," said Greg Kirkpatrick, campaign manager and executive director. "They thoroughly embraced this dream and helped us realize a long-held vision."

SECU Family House will open to its first patients and families on March 31. A grand opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony will be in the Clark Courtyard of the House in early May.