After raising three children in a tri-level home in Mokena, teachers Mark and Mary Lou Bowman were ready for fewer stairs and less yard work.
Like many Baby Boomers, they opted for a new home where most of the living is on one floor and the homeowners’ association maintains the grounds.
The three-bedroom condo they bought at Timbers Edge, an Epmark development in Joliet, has some other features they’ve learned to enjoy as well.
The doorways are wider than usual, which makes furniture moving easier. A door from the two-car garage opens directly into the kitchen to make quick work of bringing in the groceries. And there is a no-step main entrance with an easy incline from the front door to the sidewalk.
“I like it particularly after I’ve run a race,” says Mark Bowman, who takes part in 50-mile ultra-marathon races three or four times a year.
For the Bowmans, both 49, such home features are strictly extras. They bought their current home because Mark liked its “style” and the fact it was in a smaller development while Mary Lou found the kitchen and open concept floor plan appealing.
The condos at Timbers Edge are sold to all ages — a classmate of one of the Bowmans’ daughters bought the condo next door — but the design elements such as the wider doorways and no-step entry have long been promoted by architects and advocates of the elderly and those with physical handicaps.
Such home features are part of the concept of “universal design,” constructing spaces so they are comfortable and accessible to all ages, the temporarily or permanently physically impaired as well as the healthy.
The idea is that residential spaces should work for people not only when they are young and healthy, but as they age and circumstances change as with pregnancy or a broken leg.
“It’s the equity-of-use principle. What works well for a 90-year old,” says architect Rick Jolson, director of architecture and design for Barrington Venture, owner of The Garlands of Barrington, named in a 2004 American Institute of Architects design award.
“The overall concept is not new nor are many of the features, but it is becoming market-driven,” says Jolson, describing the retirement complex.
Until now, the response by most builders has been sporadic and changes have come mostly in response to government regulation.
But with a huge and aging Baby Boomer generation moving toward retirement, builders, big and small, are beginning to incorporate more universal design features into more new homes, especially in housing aimed at buyers 55 and older.
Model homes in the exploding number of age-restricted or age-targeted developments, as well as some developments for all ages, routinely show first-floor master bedroom suites and laundry rooms, wider hallways and stairways and oversized closets.
Some of those are suitable for easy conversion to residential elevators.
A growing number of models in homes of all kinds are outfitted with such features as roll-out kitchen shelving, higher bathroom sinks and counters, and lever handles on doors instead of knobs.
In the past, most housing for the retirement set was built by non-profits and faith-driven organizations. But with the advent of “active adult” developments pioneered by builder Del Webb, both builders and traditional retirement centers are positioning themselves to house the huge, wealthy Baby Boomer generation in the future.
Traditional continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs), which are experienced in building with universal design features for older residents, are now adding well-appointed private houses and condos as well as arts and recreation centers to the mix of transitional health care facilities.
The Garlands of Barrington, for example, has three-level private villas, each with a residential elevator and two-car garage as standard features, as well as condominiums.
The architecture and grounds of the northwest suburban complex provide a club-like atmosphere that resembles a modern active adult development more than the stereotypical retirement home.
“The rooms here and in the condos are roomy, have high ceilings and we have plenty of windows and storage. We have lots of space,” says JoAnn Ziegler, who moved with her husband to one of the three-level villas from a home overlooking the 18th hole at Boulder Ridge Country Club in Lake in the Hills.
Ziegler and her husband looked around the Chicago area and in Florida, where they also have a home, before buying at The Garlands. The main floor of their residence has a living and dining room, kitchen and master bedroom suite.
The lower level includes a media room, exercise room, two large storage rooms, a home office and “a large, large laundry with room enough for an extra freezer, fridge and cleaning equipment,” she says.
Traditional home builders, big and small, are following the lead of Del Webb, now part of Pulte Homes, in constructing club-like developments of housing with recreation centers and social activities.
Well-versed in building housing they are adding senior-friendly elements such as universal design features and locations next to health care centers.
Some of the developments are restricted to those 55 and older, but others will take buyers of any age.
Whatever the target market, the builders are attempting to incorporate the senior-friendly features as subtly and seamlessly as possible.
Most buyers are sensitive — and resistant — to home details that even hint at aging, according to Chicago builders on a panel discussion about the 55-plus market earlier this year.
Such obvious, but useful details as grab bars send buyers scurrying; so builders usually compromise by omitting the bars, but installing the backing necessary to hold them so they can be added later if buyers should need them.
Key design features, no matter who is doing the building, are lots of windows for more natural light because eyesight fades with age. Additionally, there are more raised appliances such as wall ovens and washers and dryers so residents needn’t bend over, showers with benches and flexible shower heads, and easy-to-grasp lever hardware instead of knobs.
Some elements are proving popular with all categories of buyers.
“Having a first-floor bedroom is important for many active adults, but younger buyers also like the convenience of being in proximity to the kitchen and living areas,” said Roger Mankedick, executive vice president of Palatine-based Concord Homes.
Concord discovered the trend when it marketed two of its subdivisions to active adults. Company officials found younger buyers also appreciated features like wider-than-normal floor plans and finished basements intended to allow down-sizers sufficient storage, Mankedick said.
How much building with universal design features may cost is a matter of some debate. Builders in the past have cited the added expense as one reason not to make the switch.
Jolson insists some features are well worth it. For instance, he says, installation of wider doorways and lower windows “costs no more.”
“The quality of design shouldn’t cost you more. When you get into luxury materials, that’s another matter,” he adds.
Builder Joe Hudetz is president of System 27 and developer of English Rows, a 56-unit in-fill row house project in Naperville.
The development, which broke ground this month, will include universal design features in a plan based on English “mews,” an enclosed private park with housing around the perimeter similar to those seen in the movie “Notting Hill.”
He estimates that to make a building accessible may add $2,500 to $3,500 to the cost of a 2,200- to 3,000-square-foot unit.
It is “five to ten times more expensive” to retrofit than to build such housing new, he says.
“I am very familiar with the difficulties of trying to retrofit to accommodate a wheelchair,” he says. His daughter, Sarah, 23, has used a wheelchair since she was a child.
She will live at English Rows and is one of the reasons he opted to build his latest project with universal design features. But not the only one.
Noting his three offspring are grown and educated, he says, “I’ve got six bedrooms, I’ve got a big lawn. And we bought a home in Naples, Florida, and we’d like to spend a couple of months a year down there. So I am thinking about where I’d live for the next 20 to 30 years.”
The 57-year old builder says, “I don’t want to be forced out of my home. I want to buy something that is going to be useful to me for the next 20 or 30 years of my life.”
Believing others are thinking as he does, Hudetz adds, “They are buying a little bit of insurance with this adaptability built-in.”
