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Imagine a retirement community where you have water aerobics classes downstairs from where you live. You even have a wellness coordinator. And if you want to try tai chi, the community offers classes for that, too.

Not to mention an Irish pub for lunch, watching sporting events or kicking back with the guys. It’s downstairs, as well.

Need assistance? The community has assisted living with tidy, little efficiency apartments, beautiful Craftsman-style communal living areas, complete with stacked-stone fireplaces, and homey screened porches overlooking gorgeous views of the woods along Oak Hollow Lake.

But what if you need complete nursing care? Imagine a small, enclosed town designed especially for your needs. An indoor town square, complete with a post office and beauty salon. Households surrounding the town square, with front porches and rocking chairs. And a specially trained team of caregivers.

Actually, the folks at Pennybyrn at Maryfield did imagine such a scenario. With the completion of their health care households (the new version of the old nursing home) earlier this year, that vision is now complete. And it’s changing the face of independent living, assisted living and — especially — complete care for elders.

If your memories of the property at West Lexington Avenue and Penny Road are of Maryfield Nursing Home, then you need to find a reason to visit.

This is not your grandmother’s nursing home. Not by a long shot.
The new independent-living and assisted-living facilities are beautiful, evoking the half-timber architecture of Ireland, as well as Pennybyrn’s Emerald Isle heritage, both outside and inside.

As with some of the other independent-living and assisted-living communities in our region, this is a luxurious way to spend your retirement years.

But I think what impresses me most is the way Pennybyrn at Maryfield has employed its “culture of caring” in skilled-nursing care for the elderly.

Instead of nursing stations, medicine carts, endless hallways of hospital-like rooms and institutional smells, sounds and protocols, officials at Pennybyrn at Maryfield have implemented a new concept for elder care that they call Maryfield Healthcare Households.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Pennybyrn or Maryfield for that matter, here’s a little history.

Maryfield Nursing Home was begun six decades ago by the Sisters of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God, an order of nuns who came here from Ireland.

The sisters operated a nursing home in the grand mansion that still stands on the property facing East Lexington Avenue.

Eventually, their nursing care expanded, and newer, bigger facilities were built on the property. All the while, Maryfield Nursing Home’s reputation as an excellent, trusted provider of elder care grew.

As the population has aged, the needs for retirement communities, assisted living and elder care have grown. In the past decade, Maryfield decided to grow to meet those needs — and then some.

With these grand plans for revamping Maryfield Nursing Home came new dimensions. A community called Pennybyrn at Maryfield with three levels of living — independent, assisted and total care. In 2005, the directors at this new Pennybyrn began the transition from nursing home to a new concept in elder care.

Now, the nursing home no longer exists. It has been replaced by six health care households that surround a town square. Each household has a front porch, a parlor, a den, a kitchen, a patio and a charm all its own.

There’s the Nantucket-style house with clapboard siding outside, beadboard kitchen cabinets and the fresh coastal feel of an ocean-front cottage. There’s the elegant charm of a classic Southern home, the whimsy of a Victorian “painted lady” and the coziness and natural feel of a Craftsman home.

Each household is home to 18 to 23 residents. Instead of nursing stations, the facilities have team rooms that look just like other rooms in the household. Medicine carts no longer deliver pills to the residents.

Instead, each bedroom is equipped with a personal (locked) medicine cabinet. The kitchen and living room are natural extensions of each resident’s room, and it’s not at all unusual to see the residents walking through their “homes,” relaxing in a recliner and watching TV or enjoying fresh air and sunshine on the patio.

The lifestyle that has been implemented at Maryfield’s Healthcare Households is much calmer and more peaceful than the old nursing-home concept. Residents go to bed when they choose, they eat breakfast when they want it, and they enjoy the smells of home cooking from their own kitchens for dinner.

No more food carts.

No more institutional rules and regulations.

And for those who feel like getting out and about, the town square is a hub of activity.

Ice cream socials.

Bible studies.

Movies.

Visits with their neighbors.

A real sense of community.

In fact, this sense of community is drawing attention nationwide, and Maryfield Healthcare Households now attract elder care professionals from across the country who wish to learn how they can transform their facilities to this model for elder care.

No, it’s not your grandmother’s nursing home by a long stretch. But I certainly hope this model will become the rule, rather than the exception, by the time the rest of us need this type of care.

For information about Pennybyrn at Maryfield, contact Edward Cordick, director of public relations development, at 821-4020.

Contact Cathy Weaver at CWeaverNR@gmail.com