Living Well

With health-conscious boomers in mind, luxury condo developers are incorporating wellness into their master plans

Working out in her fitness center, Cherilyn Frei can peer out through the large glass windows and see a sprawling, serene garden, with areas for meditating or just enjoying the leafy solitude. If she doesn’t feel like exercising on the state-of-the-art equipment, she can opt for a yoga class, a swim in the Olympic-size pool, or perhaps just a massage in the spa. Frei, 49, isn’t on a luxury spa vacation. All these options are available to her because she has chosen to make her home in a place — Miraval Living on New York’s Upper East Side — where wellness is an integral part of everyday life.

Frei’s move into one of Miraval’s 365 luxury condos was preceded by a visit to the Miraval resort in Tucson, Ariz., a vacation spot dedicated to physical, mental, and spiritual wellness — and a place where Frei had spent a transformative four days a few years ago packing in spa treatments, hikes through the Sonoran Desert, and classes on nutrition and stress reduction. So when the opportunity arose to have everyday access to the kind of classes and facilities she so relished on her Arizona respite, Frei, who is the director of spiritual care with the Ronald McDonald House in New York, jumped at the chance.

As it turns out, Frei is not alone in seeking a residence where amenities such as spas and fitness centers are just as important as marble countertops or a garage-size walk-in closet. Miraval is just one developer touting its health and wellness facilities as a way to lure buyers of luxury condos and other housing options.

Not surprisingly, many of the developers in this category are owners of health-and-wellness-oriented resorts who are parlaying their expertise and brand names into residential properties. In addition to Miraval, Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va.; La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.; and Arizona’s Canyon Ranch all offer the opportunity to buy an apartment, house, or condo, an arrangement that gives buyers the same kind of access to classes and facilities that a weekend guest at one of the resorts would have.

A Fitness Boom

It’s not only young, superactive homebuyers who are looking for living situations that incorporate ways to improve their health and fitness. In fact, many of the people who have the means to purchase a luxury property — as well as an overriding interest in healthy living — are baby boomers looking ahead to their retirement years.

“Boomers clearly are taking better care of themselves than their parents did, and they understand and recognize the importance of what we like to call living younger longer,” says Roxanne Housley, vice president of sales and marketing for Canyon Ranch, the Tucson-based resort that recently opened a beachfront hotel and condominium facility in Miami Beach with a 70,000-square-foot wellness and fitness center. All but 50 of the development’s 580 one-, two-, and three-bedroom condos — some of which feature private elevators and bathrooms with whirlpools — have been sold, a minor miracle in the South Florida real estate market, which has seen housing prices plummet and foreclosures proliferate.

Evelyn Howard, who does market research for developers trying to entice buyers 50 and older, concurs. She says wellness used to mean one thing to potential buyers: “One of the first questions people ask is, Where is the closest hospital?” But boomers, she adds, are clearly a different breed from their parents.

In that vein, don’t expect to see anything in the promotional literature for these developments about the “golden years.” Although their parents might have been content to bake in the Arizona or Florida sun, boomers envision a retirement chock-full of activities — anything from volunteering at local schools to running marathons. For now, says Gene Warren, president of Thomas, Warren + Associates, a Phoenix-based market research consulting firm, boomers want to live in places that help them pursue their many interests, without any hint that they might not always be able to do everything they’d like.

Warren recalls how one client in South Carolina almost made the mistake of adding an assisted-living facility to its development. “We said, you do that and it’s the kiss of death for your community,” he recalls. “You’re not going to get the boomers. That reminds them that they are mortal.”

Wellness, Made Better

Betty Saks decided to purchase a condo in Canyon Ranch’s new Miami development after spending some time at the resort’s Lenox, Mass., facility, where she underwent a full medical analysis by a team of doctors, nutritionists, and exercise physiologists. “I’ve come to respect their judgments and attitudes and really wanted to be in an environment where other people were of the same mindset,” she says. “I bought there because it’s a supportive environment for a healthy lifestyle.”

As appealing as the sprawling spas and fitness rooms are, the expertise provided by the staffs at these luxury wellness residences may ultimately be the biggest draw. At Canyon Ranch, for instance, residents can call upon a physician whenever they want, whether to address a current malady or consult about ways to prevent a future illness. Many of the residents choose a Canyon Ranch physician as their primary care doctor.

Sometimes the individual attention is downright futuristic. Housley says that Canyon Ranch residents, under the direction of exercise physiologists, can be hooked up to computerized exercise equipment that identifies specific muscles that are weaker than they should be. Then they can work with a trainer to develop exercises to work those muscles.

For Cherilyn Frei, buying a place at Miraval Living has helped her incorporate many of the healthful practices from her spa vacation into her daily life. “It’s one thing to go to a resort and spend a week and come back to a busy, hectic urban lifestyle. It’s another thing to learn practices there, and the philosophy, and come back into a living situation that lives it and preaches it and surrounds you with it,” says Frei, who is using some of the knowledge and practices she has picked up at Miraval to help create a wellness program for women at the Ronald McDonald House. “It’s like you’re in this little oasis, but you’re in the middle of Manhattan.”