Are Sustainable Villages The Future Of Retirement?

Serenbe, a planned sustainable community, is a new village designed to help its residents gracefully age in place.

1 MIN READ

A new visionary community outside Atlanta from real-estate developer Steve Nygren may be a model for the future of retirement, reports Adam Bluestein for Fast Company. The development, called Serenbe, broke ground in 2004 and now has around 500 residents in two villages, and construction on a third village has begun. Homes are priced from $300,000 to more than $1 million.

Nygren wanted to build something that was more sustainable and connected to the rural landscape than traditional subdivisions after he and his family moved to a farm. He wanted to model the development after an English countryside, where high-density villages are surrounded by expansive rural spaces.

Construction on Serenbe’s third village, called Mado, began this summer. As the two previous Serenbe villages were pilots for then-new ideas about sustainability, land use, and intentional community, the third village, Mado will pilot a new model for “aging in place”—a hot topic among senior advocates and forward-thinking builders and developers.

Standard home features will include a step-less entry into single-story homes, baths with reinforced and easy-to-reach towel bars, multiple-height work surfaces in the kitchen, and wider doors, staircases, and halls.

Read more about Serenbe at Fast Company >>

About the Author

Lauren Shanesy

Lauren is a former senior associate editor for Hanley Wood's residential construction group.

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