San Francisco – Coats and ties for men, skirts or dresses for women. That was the dinner dress code for most of the last 37 years at The Sequoias, a high- rise retirement community here.
But when the owner decided to renovate the dining room, newer residents lobbied for a more casual dining experience with a buffet. More than two years later, some of the old-timers are still grumbling, says Hilde Orloff, president of the resident council.
“There is a definite generation gap between the ones who have lived here 20 years” and more recent arrivals, said Orloff, 82, a resident of The Sequoias for three years.
San Francisco isn’t the only city where efforts to accommodate so-called “younger olders” are causing consternation among their elders. As residences designed for a generation that came of age during the Great Depression make way for one that entered adulthood amid postwar prosperity, more and more retirement communities are experiencing similar culture clashes.
Often, squabbles arise when administrators propose raising monthly fees to pay for the spa cuisine, wellness classes and computer-ready apartments demanded by comparatively spry 70-year-olds.
At St. Paul’s Towers in Oakland, Calif., complaints accompanied a plan to create an auditorium for lectures; while at Oakmont Village, a 3,000-home age-restricted neighborhood in Santa Rosa, Calif., it was the cost of spiffing up the gym that ruffled feathers.
Maria Dwight, a Santa Monica-based consultant who helps clients plan and market senior housing, said older residents don’t want to pay for perks they won’t use. “They don’t see the facilities with fresh eyes,” she said. “So the carpet is a little worn, so what? They are living there, they are comfortable.”
The intergenerational tension is expected to mount as more and more baby boomers enter their golden years, during which they are expected to be healthier and more active than the generation that came before them. By 2030, one in five U.S. residents is expected to be 65 and older.
“This creates a real dilemma for older retirement communities,” Dwight said, “because they tend to have small dwelling units and huge dining rooms that aren’t attractive to younger older people who want weight rooms and casual dining and lap pools and a home office and room for the grandchildren to come visit.”
“The older generation was willing to acquiesce a lot of control, so if the facility said dinner was at 5, they said OK,” said Dwight, who is 72. “This (younger) generation says, ‘No, I don’t eat dinner at 5,’ and ‘No, I don’t want breakfast and lunch with you,’ and ‘I want what I want, and I will find it.”‘
Most seniors tend to adapt to the changes if they are handled with sensitivity, according to Dee Ann Campbell, vice president of the Episcopal Homes Foundation, which operates five retirement communities in Northern California.
“My observation is they meet in the middle and become a community over time, the new people and the people who have been there a while,” Campbell said. “There are aspects of the communal experience new people thought they would never be interested in. And then the people who have been there a while and only did water aerobics or chair yoga will say, ‘I didn’t think I would like line dancing, but it’s really fun.”‘
