Stories
Living Our Best Life
THE THIRD ACT As the senior population stays healthier longer and grows more diverse, two communities distinguish themselves as they reflect their residents’ ethnic and spiritual identities. By Jennifer Sergent
Above The new Priya Living in Rochester Hills, MI, offers a welcoming embrace to residents and visitors of all ages with a partially covered terrace and recreation area adjacent to its canopied entry. Rendering Courtesy Priya Living
48
Arun Paul wasn’t looking to create a transformative new living option for the legions of retiring Indian and South Asian immigrants who came to the United States in the late 1960s. He just knew that his parents, who had moved from Kolkata to California before he was born, weren’t comfortable with any of the senior living offerings close to Paul’s home in the San Francisco Bay Area. “They didn’t say anything,” he remembers of the tours he took with his parents through several communities, “but I felt [their concern] at every level: It’s not welcoming.”
the NARRATIVE
Adults who are living longer will no longer be resting; they are active and a vital part of our society, and our living environments will need to reflect those seismic shifts.” —“The Longevity Revolution” His response? The resort and hospitality executive decided he would purchase a duplex for his parents and their best friends so they could form their own small community. But as his parents started telling friends and relatives across the country what he was doing for them, the story took on a life of its own. Before Paul knew it, he was getting hundreds of calls. A typical caller would say, “I’m your mom’s cousin’s best friend, and I heard you’re building a senior living community for Indians!” One person even said: “We’ve been talking about this in Atlanta for 20 years—God bless you.” What Paul was hearing is representative of a change that’s happening across the senior living sector, where developers are focusing on the interests, lifestyles, ethnicities, and backgrounds of their prospective residents rather than simply building a place to house and feed them and attend to their medical needs. Perkins Eastman Principal and Senior Living Co-Practice Leader Martin Siefering suggests that viewing our future in the context of the past can be helpful. With shorter life expectancies and fewer financial resources, especially prior to the creation of Social Security, he says, “previous generations of older adults were often content with quite minimal shelter and care.” Today, senior living communities across the country that were designed to meet those modest needs are now struggling to find relevance in today’s environment. “We also have a population of
older adults today that is much more highly educated than previous generations, especially among women,” Siefering adds. “They’ve lived their lives with broader experiences, and as a result are demanding a different approach to housing as they age.” People are living longer and staying healthier, so illness and frailty are no longer the only drivers of senior-living design. And though there continues to be substantial demand for assisted-living, skillednursing, and memory-support environments, there’s an increasing push to develop independent-living communities that are rich in amenities and activities. “Adults who are living longer will no longer be resting; they are active and a vital part of our society, and our living environments will need to reflect those seismic shifts,” Perkins Eastman Principal Leslie Moldow and Senior Associate Merintha Pinson write in “The Longevity Revolution,” a white paper they produced earlier this year. “Developers can identify niche markets and tailor life plans to people with shared values—whether spiritual, cultural, or personal interests.” Two developers—Paul and Kendal Corporation’s Sean Kelly—are tapping into these “seismic shifts” with vibrant, community-centered options. Their projects offer creative best practices for the burgeoning senior living market.
Below Bold colors characterize the interiors of Priya Living in Rochester Hills, MI, where the main level features a chai bar, left, and the Masti Lounge through an arched entry beyond—a space named after the Hindi term for playful and fun. Rendering Courtesy Priya Living
FALL 2022 49
Stories
Above In the entry lobby/living room at Enso Village in Healdsburg, CA, oak-paneled ceilings that flow from the inside out and an organically inspired color palette are among the interior design approaches throughout the community that form a direct connection to nature. Rendering Courtesy Green Grass Studios
Answering the Call After hearing from so many of his parents’ friends, friends of friends, and acquaintances, Paul nixed the duplex idea and instead purchased a 26-unit apartment complex in Santa Clara, where he opened the first Priya Living community in 2012 and served nearly every role, including sales director, head of maintenance, and even food-delivery driver. He also traveled across the country, holding listening sessions attended by hundreds of people at each stop. They told impassioned stories about their desires to replicate the culture and community in later life that they had already established in the broader Indian diaspora throughout the US. “I felt this my whole life, like my parents left a piece of themselves behind in India. This is true across cultures,” Paul says. “That’s why I see an enormous need for this. It’s about creating places where our residents feel understood and valued.” Priya Living now has four locations, totaling 256 units between San Francisco and San Jose, all of which are sold out. To further expand the concept, Paul hired Perkins Eastman to design new, amenity-driven communities near Detroit and Houston, and most of the apartments have been pre-leased though construction has yet to begin on either project. Paul is already envisioning more locations in Chicago, Atlanta, Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Boston, Dallas, and Austin. The designs for each of these properties nod to Indian culture, with large, open, and flexible spaces to accommodate gatherings such as parlor games, book clubs, Bollywood movie nights, karaoke, and programming to bring other generations of Indians into the community. There’s also a chai bar, spaces for yoga and meditation, and a vegetarian-based dining menu. The color palette is inspired by bright saris
50
and Indian spice markets. Paul is quick to point out, however, that Priya Living communities are open to anyone who favors the lifestyle they offer, not just those of Indian or South Asian descent. “Our goal has always been, no matter who you are, you can come into our community and say, ‘I love the vibe here,’” he says. “We’re people focused, not product focused.”
Intentional Living Priya offers an array of wellness and personaldevelopment programs such as an incubator for career coaching, mentorship exchange, volunteer opportunities, and continued learning. Its residents represent a “new customer,” according to Robert Kramer, co-founder and strategic advisor of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care. In an August 2022 article about the drivers shaping the future of senior living, he writes that long life in the last century happened almost by accident: “Our society is, frankly, built for people to retire and die in their 60s and 70s. Our norms and expectations around retirement and aging, not to mention our social insurance system, are not designed for the longevity reality that we’re facing today,” Kramer writes. This “new customer” is among the first generation ever to experience purposeful longevity. “What personalized experiences that are metaphors for being alive or make life worth living will we offer our customers? That is our challenge.” Perkins Eastman is well positioned to meet the moment. Almost since its founding in 1981, the firm has worked with faith-based organizations that developed communities geared toward their residents’ quality of life rather than merely their healthcare
the NARRATIVE
or aging-related needs. Prominent among these organizations were—and still are—Jewish communities across the country who’ve built retirement homes for their members. “They’re based on the commandment to honor thy father and thy mother,” says Perkins Eastman Co-founder and Chairman Brad Perkins. Most retirement homes in the 1980s tended to be focused on skilled nursing, he says, but Jewish senior living facilities stood out because they were often the best facilities in their region. “They had good philanthropic support and creative leadership, and they tended to be showcases. They were driving innovation, particularly in some very core areas, which are the dignity and the privacy of every single resident,” Perkins says. Paul says he looked to Jewish communities as a model for Priya Living. “They show the power of connection and shared interests,” he says. “I could see very clearly what it was doing for people—it was acknowledging who they were. It was saying, ‘Yes, you matter. You’re important.’ It was creating a place where you felt safe, where people understood you.” The same concept is at work in Healdsburg, CA, where Perkins Eastman is providing interior architecture and design for Enso Village, a Zen-inspired community the Kendal Corporation is developing in partnership with the San Francisco Zen Center. “They looked to us to bring both our expertise and storytelling, narrative approach to design, to think about this community differently,” says Emily Woods Weiskopf, associate principal and the Residential co-practice area leader for ForrestPerkins, a distinct Perkins Eastman studio. The Zen Center long ago made a promise to provide retirement housing to its 20 original meditation teachers. To build a community for those teachers and others who appreciate a spiritual, contemplative lifestyle, they approached the Quaker-based Kendal, whose values of consensus and openness align with Zen practices. The focus is “to meet people where they are with an openness to where they might go,” Kendal President and CEO Sean Kelly says in an introductory video on the Enso Village website. “The world at-large looks at getting older through a very narrow view. For the most part, that narrow view is only through the decline, and that’s why this community . . . is getting so
much traction.” Its 275 condominiums were 95-percent sold before the 2021 ground breaking; the project is expected to open in 2023. In keeping with the rural Healdsburg landscape, the designers styled the interiors at Enso Village with a nature-inspired scheme that includes a Japanese tea garden and a “zendo” meditation hall in the center of a large courtyard; vegetable gardens to stock its kitchens; and an all-vegetarian bistro based on the Zen Center’s Greens restaurant in San Francisco. Interior “nodes” at the intersection of each connecting building in the complex provide space for tranquil pause. “The interior design feels timeless and true to its story,” Woods Weiskopf says. “The New Map of Life,” a multiyear study published by the Stanford Center on Longevity in 2021, envisions “a society that supports people to live secure and high-quality lives for a century or more.” Priya Living and Enso Village answer the call with environments that focus on vitality and wellness rather than decline. “This is the future,” says Moldow, a leader in the Senior Living practice. “There are so many more people staying healthy longer that we’re able to diversify and create these more targeted communities.”
Below Condominium owners at Enso Village can choose between three finish schemes—all based on warm neutrals in keeping with the rest of the building’s interiors. Residents will enjoy large windows and balconies overlooking the inner courtyard, the surrounding neighborhood, or the hills of Healdsburg. Rendering Courtesy Green Grass Studios
The world at-large looks at getting older through a very narrow view. For the most part, that narrow view is only through the decline, and that’s why this community . . . is getting so much traction.” —Sean Kelly, Kendal President and CEO FALL 2022 51
Stories
Preparing for an
ACTIVE GENERATION
“From Pyramid to Pillar: A Century of Change,” a recent US Census Bureau population projection, shows the rapid evolution of age distribution between 1960, when people over 60 formed an increasingly smaller portion of the population, and 2060, when this group’s numbers are projected to nearly equal their youngest counterparts. Pair that trend with advances in health and medicine, and centenarians’ birthdays will no longer be deemed feature-worthy on the evening news. “The New Map of Life” by the Stanford Center on Longevity says “longevityready” communities will have to prepare for “longer human lives, with built environments that are more walkable and provide access to mass transit, healthcare, and opportunities for lifelong learning, and that foster intergenerational connections.”
2Life Opus Rendering Copyright Perkins Eastman
Living environments are already starting to respond. “The consumer of today is incredibly diverse in what they want, and that expresses itself in many ways,” says Perkins Eastman Principal Martin Siefering, the co-practice leader for Senior Living. Here are some recent examples of firm-designed communities that respond to the needs and desires of this new generation of seniors: 2Life Communities: Opus Newton | Newton, MA This middle-income community, being built next to an existing 2Life community for low-income residents, is modeled on a “kibbutz” where every resident volunteers for service hours in activities of their choice. As a result, everyone is invested in actively maintaining their community, and the program keeps its operating costs to a minimum. Aegis Madison | Seattle, WA Located in the middle of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, Aegis blends seamlessly with the surrounding community; it opens its common areas to private events and local community meetings, and it operates the public Queen Bee coffeehouse and a mercantile boutique on its ground level.
Aegis Madison Copyright Lara Swimmer/Courtesy VIA
Inspirata Pointe at Royal Oaks | Sun City, AZ Wearable technology and blood-sugar monitors for its residents, along with a hands-on community garden and an abundance of nutritional food options, help residents stay active participants in their own health. Maravilla at The Domain | Austin, TX Its ZEST wellness program offers lifelong learning seminars, whole-food and plant-based menu options, gardening groups, fitness programs, and opportunities for volunteering in the community, such as mentoring an elementary school class. MonteCedro | Altadena, CA This resort-style community near Los Angeles offers a Creative Living Academy, where residents can “teach, lead, or study a vast array of subjects, from art history to current events to horticulture.”
Paradise Valley Estates: The Ridge Rendering Copyright Perkins Eastman
Paradise Valley Estates: The Ridge | Fairfield, CA An eight-acre addition was designed to encourage movement and staying active, with walking paths, community gardens, and a woodworking studio. Trillium of Tysons | Tysons, VA This high-rise, currently under construction, is located within a mixed-use development at the center of Tysons, an urban outpost of Washington, DC. The project is one block from the Metro, with direct access to multiple restaurants, shops, and cinemas. Vincentian Schenley Gardens | Pittsburgh, PA This model of intergenerational care keeps its residents connected to other age groups. Graduate students in local health-sciences programs provide in-person support, and residents are able to volunteer at the on-site childcare program. N
Trillium of Tysons Rendering Copyright Perkins Eastman
52