Fox Hollow

“Staying Up North”

By Rob Varnon

(Connecticut Post)

 

 Naugatuck – Gary Bonomo could gush over the indoor lap pool or the shower that’s equipped to blow the owner dry on the homes he’s building, but instead he focuses on the kitchen cabinet – talking about how no matter what age does to the owner; he or she can still get at the sink.

What Bonomo and his partners in CDIFund LLC are doing is created an active senior living community called Fox Hollow off Naugatuck’s Mill Street, which boasts homes you can really grow old in.

“It’s the little things like this that make it complementary to aging in place,” he said.

Partner Robert Gladstone, owner of Gladstone Painting, said there are 13 different shades of paint in one of the houses. But the paint is not glaringly different from room to room – just different enough to give someone with a vision problem a sort of marker for each room, he said.

Fox Hollow is a 20-home, age 55-plus development. The starting price door a house is $375,000, but each homebuyer works with the group’s various partners on specific paint, cabinets and even the floor plan. Armand DeAngelis, 50-year veteran of custom home design, created the plans and the changes them to fit each owner.

Bonomo became interested in the senior housing market when his mother needed to move in, because her home could no longer accommodate her needs.

Bonomo retired several years ago after developing information technology companies. He said he’s sort of unretired now.

“I spent two years interviewing older women about their needs,” he said. And then he worked with Universal Design experts at the State University of New York, Buffalo, and the University of North Carolina, he said, to come up with a plan to create livable spaces for age.

Universal Design embraces the theory that homes should be accessible to people of all abilities. What that means is hallways and doorways are a little wider, in case the person needs to use a wheelchair during his or her lifetime. Instead of door handles, which are easier for people with arthritis to use but don’t inconvenience people without that problem.

The cabinets under the kitchen sink, Bonomo said, allow a person in a wheelchair to get near enough to reach the faucet handles. The oven and other fixtures are also designed to allow people to reach them from various positions, either sitting or standing.

But the important part, he said, is that when you look at the house and walk through it, it doesn’t look like a hospital.

It was the institutional look that troubled him about the aging-in-place designs of the past.

Bonomo said CDIFund has done more than just pretty up the convenience of Universal Design – it has created a seamless flow of options for homeowners.

For instance, one of the rooms in the houses contains an indoor lap pool and wet bar – just what an active, newly retired couple might like.

But, because people are living longer today than ever before, that newly retired couple might have elderly parents who need to move in.

So the developers have built a floor they can drop over the pool, and the wet bar converts into a sink and small stove – creating an apartment, Bonomo said. The changes would all be made through Fox Hollow’s sales office and can be done in a day.

Connecticut builders are more interested these days in the active adult type of projects, according to Robert Wiedenmann Jr., president and owner of Sunwood Development Corp. of Wallingford. Wiedenmann is not involved with the Fox Hollow team. But he is familiar with Universal Design and the aging-in-place theories of building, having completed a few custom houses incorporating them; he’s also taken courses on the subject.

“We’re all growing old, and particularly in New England,” he said, referring to U.S. Census Bureau data indicating Connecticut’s population has the eight-oldest median age, at 39.3 years.

And as people age, he said, they have surgeries for joint replacements, problems with arthritis and other medical issues that mean most will, at same point, have accessibility problems in their homes.

Wiedenmann said he prefers aga-targeted developments, rather than restricted like Fox Hollow, because he doesn’t like the strict rules that limit who can live there. Wiedenmann said age-targeted housing generally attracts the same group of people as 55-plus limits.

No one under the age of 18 is allowed to live in Fox Hollow, according to Bonomo.

Amy Arnheim, manager of William Pitt Sotheby’s Realty Fairfield, said she hasn’t had much experience with 55-plus restricted developments, but the market for retirement communities is strong in Connecticut.

More seniors here are deciding they would rather retire near their families instead of move south, she said. And many of these retirees have built up large nest eggs, according to Arnheim, so while they may want to get out of their old homes, they don’t want to give up any amenities or comfort. She said they often looking for single-family homes where the yards are professionally cared for and where they have access to a community clubhouse or pool.

Bonomo’s development has most of that and, in some ways, more he said. The owners pay an annual community fee of $250, which covers the property insurance and heating fuel.

While the homes have indoor lap pools, the development is also across the street from a golf course and is a short car ride from downtown. The homes are furnished with high-definition plasma screen televisions and wireless Internet capability.

Bonomo insists what ultimately makess the difference is no longer worrying your health will make you a prisoner in your own home.

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