Nestled in a neighborhood in Boise, Idaho, BrightStar Care Homes Stephens brings a dual-concept, small-home community blending aesthetics and functionality e for memory care.
The community, located in a quiet neighborhood with a cottage-like interior, aims to greet residents with warmth when they step foot inside. The community was designed to fit into the character of the surrounding neighborhood, and brings modern appeal and memory care services to prospective residents in the area, according to Caroline Moore, the property’s owner and a franchisee with BrightStar Care Homes.
“I came in with a mission to deliver a premium home for families with loved ones in need of care and the final product provides just that,” Moore said in an email to Senior Housing News. “We now specialize in housing residents that require memory care support and can provide them with an elevated home experience.”
BrightStar Care Homes Stephens was recognized as the winner in the 2022 Senior Housing News Architecture and Design Awards’ Small Footprint senior living community category.
The Concept
The 5,371 square-foot home was designed by architect Jeff Hatch with interior design completed by CMoore Homes LLC. Moore was already operating another location for BrightStar Care before approaching the company for another location in 2016. A year later, plans for the project got underway.
Planning took two years and construction started in 2019, with a time frame to opening that was elongated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The community has a small house design, and thus was “under the constraints of a pre-built home,” Moore said.
“To work around this, we began refining our plan with the goal to build a premium space for an excellent resident experience,” Moore added.
Moore and the project team put considerable thought into the features and spaces in the community to ensure they met the needs of residents. The design they landed on was a community with 10 private bedrooms and plenty of access to the outdoors. The project team also added into the design open site lines for caregivers to look after and interact with residents.
The home’s “heart” is in the kitchen, which has a bar for residents to sit at and an open-plan dining room with large windows and comfortable seating. Residents can walk in the continuous loop of the community’s hallways or visit a space such as “Rocking Chair Alley,” where they can watch birds at the feeders outside.
Other spaces include a great room, covered patio and sunroom. The outdoor space includes raised garden beds that grow herbs and flowers, with residents participating in the planting of the home’s greenery. These spaces are aimed at creating places that honor the integrity and individualism of each resident.
Moore added that working with Hatch was a collaborative process that resulted in her vision coming to life “effortlessly.”
“We still receive tremendous feedback about the home structure,” Moore said.
The Construction
Construction was handled by contractor Bill Garret. One challenge during the process was permitting, as new codes were put in place that complicated inspections of the site, Moore said.
Key building materials like flooring and fixtures were backordered due to the supply chain shortages that plagued the construction industry during the pandemic
“We were resilient in the face of Covid and learned to adjust to the changing climate of the times we were in,” Moore said of the project’s construction.
Cost overruns came due to supply issues and inflation, pushing the overall budget for the project upwards of $1.4 million, Moore noted.
The Completion
The community opened its doors in August, 2021. Today, the home stands as an example of modern small-house senior living design. It also is a testament to the utilities of modern technology, with solar panels, a secure perimeter, coded exits and a camera system with infrared motion sensors that can detect when residents fall or have another similar health event. All the elements are integrated into the home and the solar panels account for a majority of the home’s energy needs.
Residents living in the community today enjoy the surrounding area, with outdoor activities including nature walks, outdoor grilling and resting on the large outdoor deck, where residents sit in rocking chairs — a favorite amenity, Moore said. Most rooms in the home give staff open sight lines for care staff that ensures resident safety and improves response times when residents need assistance.
“The final product was everything we hoped and planned for,” Moore said, adding that the community was at 90% occupancy. That high demand for the small home concept will help propel more growth of the community.
Moore said the home is looking to increase capacity to 12 beds to accommodate additional residents, while maximizing the space available within the home’s layout.
“We are already in the works planning a few layout modifications and changes to allow us to increase the number of residents we can take in,” Moore said.
In the dining room, residents sit at four-to-six seated tables with lighting in the space set on dimmers to help set the mood and tone of the space.
The home offers a large beauty bath area with roll-in showers to accommodate all residents and heated floors to add a spa-like quality to the space. Personal cubbies in the space store resident toiletries and a skylight brings in lots of natural light into the space.
Private rooms have warm yellow walls and a space meeting desired furniture needs of each resident and cable TV is included in the room should a resident want a personal television. Large windows and roomy closets complete the private spaces.
Family and resident testimonials are used in the community’s marketing efforts to garner further interest and showcase the memory care services to new audiences, Moore said.
“Overall, we provide a quality, personalized, and inclusive environment for our residents,” Moore added.
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