The modern retirement home: not for retiring types

Once upon a time, the retirement home was a dreary place: three square meals, a cot, and orderlies in white uniforms were about the most you could hope for. The industrial facilities of the midcentury prioritised medicine over ambience and socialising, and the mood was more One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest than Cocoon. 

Today, though, the options are dizzying. “One of the biggest changes in the industry is continuing care centres,” or CCRCs, says Markus Schafer, a professor of…