Top Retirement Spots With Today's Retirees (continued)

Co-Housing
• Colorado

As the generation that created the commune craze heads into retirement, its members are beginning to build "co-housing" developments -- a concept borrowed from Denmark in which residents have their own private townhouses or condos but share a central "common house." Nearly 200 co-housing developments have been started in the U.S. since 1991. Now, at least two such developments specifically targeted to older people have opened their doors, in southwestern Virginia and Northern California. And a third is under way in Colorado that could become the model for "elder co-housing" around the country.

Silver Sage Village, in Boulder, Colo., now under construction, plans to have a meditation room on the main floor of its common house where acupuncturists, massage therapists and other healers can work. The common house also will have a craft room, sitting room and media room -- a luxury some multigenerational communities forgo because of parents' concerns about children watching television unsupervised. The development sits next door to a multigenerational co-housing community with which it already has close ties. That's the model that a small band of co-housing consultants and architects expect to take hold, because the younger residents can help provide neighborly support to their elders -- and move next door as they age, if they so desire.

Annie Russell, Silver Sage's coordinator, lives next door at Wild Sage Cohousing. In the new development, 25 people will be living in 16 households. "There's a desire on our part to have a really close-knit community," she says. "You're committing to be there for each other in need, and that takes a pretty intense relationship."

Co-housing isn't necessarily an economical option. Units at Silver Sage, situated on prime Boulder land, start around $400,000. Six homes were set aside as "affordable" -- about $119,000 or $140,000 apiece -- for which Colorado residents are most likely to qualify. Applicants currently must have annual income of roughly $35,000 or less to qualify for the $119,000 units and $45,000 or less for the $140,000 units. In Abingdon, Va., where a group of former nuns sparked the formation of ElderSpirit Community, with 29 cluster homes and apartments, prices were kept in the $100,000 range by searching for a bargain-basement land price and winning state grants.

At a gathering this summer in Asheville, N.C., of 135 architects, developers, academics and retirees interested in elder co-housing, a troubling question was raised: What happens if too many residents become frail at the same time? Since the concept is so new, there's no firm answer. Zev Paiss, a consultant who specializes in elder co-housing, says the experience in Denmark, so far, has been that residents' needs have been staggered enough that their neighbors can juggle the help.

Many more informal, communal arrangements could come about as well, especially among divorced and widowed women friends who buy a house together with an extra room for a home-care worker if needed -- or a chauffeur, says Sandra Timmerman, director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute in Westport, Conn., who has kicked around the idea in her own social circle.

Co-housing's biggest advantage could be the sense of community it creates and the isolation it helps its residents avoid as they grow older, says Ron Manheimer, executive director of the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement, who organized the conference in Asheville.

"The whole idea that your neighborhood is your community hasn't been the case for an awful long time for a lot of people," he says. "Clearly, that seems to be part of the expectation for co-housing: that people could be living in a more intimate way."

Rail Trails
• Michigan and South Carolina

The growing network of 1,500 rail trails -- old railroad beds and corridors converted into strips of asphalt and crushed gravel with no cars allowed -- is luring retirees who like to cycle, walk, skate and even ski to homes near trailheads in pockets dotting the country. The best part is that the paths -- 13,600 miles at last count -- are generally level "because it was always in the interest of the railroads to grade the roadbeds as flat as possible," says Keith Laughlin, president of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a nonprofit group in Washington. (The group has an online directory of trails at traillink.com.) "They did all this engineering work to reduce all the hills. So you have more gentle slopes over a long period of time as opposed to lots of ups and downs."

And people "who have had exposure to the trails prior to retirement are going to be looking to build trails into their lifestyle," Mr. Laughlin says. "Not having to drive, or take a long on-road bike trip, to get to a trail is really attractive."

Jerry Corley, a retired utility executive, splits his time between two cycling meccas: Charlevoix, Mich., and the coastal region of South Carolina. In Michigan, he has helped spearhead trail expansions along Lake Michigan, creating a large network of pathways.

"Charlevoix is my favorite place in the world," says Mr. Laughlin, who vacationed there as a child and attended a bike ride for donors in the area two years ago. "The scenery's spectacular."

Mr. Corley, 63, spent last winter at Sun City Hilton Head, an "active adult" community in Bluffton, S.C., with a busy cycling club, a growing network of local trails, and Hilton Head Island's 20 miles of public pathways along with its 12 miles of beach. "My wife and I love to take out our hybrids down there and ride out to the marsh, where we have a picnic and watch the birds," he says. "It's just beautiful."

Helping to build and expand the trails can become as big a part of some retirees' lives as using them. After moving to Sun City Hilton Head six years ago, Karen Heitman, one of Mr. Corley's neighbors, helped start an advocacy group called Greater Bluffton Pathways in an effort to expand a fledgling network of trails as the small town expands. "I wanted to be able to ride my bike from Sun City to Bluffton, and wasn't able to because the roads around us were so busy," says Ms. Heitman, 60.

Her group lobbied South Carolina officials to widen highway shoulders to accommodate cyclists, developed a program to donate 400 bike helmets to local children, and negotiated with Sun City's developer to donate 10 acres for a trailhead. Now, she's pushing to get 25 miles of abandoned track nearby turned into a rail trail that might eventually become part of a cycling corridor extending up and down the East Coast.

Charlie MacInnis, a 59-year-old retired corporate spokesman in Harbor Springs, Mich., took on Mr. Corley's old job as president of the Top of Michigan Trails Council last winter. Mr. MacInnis says he got hooked on trail-expansion work when he realized that "this is a way to build a legacy...When you see families who can ride to the beach, or get to work by bike, you realize you're creating something that will help our children and grandchildren."

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