Brantwood’s luxury, culture aimed at active seniors in Pasadena
Luxury living for active seniors 62 and older has come to Pasadena’s walkable Playhouse Village with the opening of a new 55-unit luxury apartment complex.
Dubbed Brantwood, the six-story Italian palazzo-style building at 88 N. Oakland Ave., developed by Mill Creek Properties, offers all-inclusive lease plans. One-bedrooms start at $5,000 monthly and two-bedrooms at $8,000 monthly, with living spaces averaging 784 and 1,276 square feet, respectively.
The rent includes maintenance-free living with boutique hotel-style services, amenities and daily events calendars to promote socialization.
“The demographic is people who are curious, still,” said Lisa Ashworth of The Agency, a certified seniors real estate specialist co-listing the property with colleague Lindsey Darling. “They want personal growth and development. They want to be enriched by a lot of the things we have to offer, from the cultural arts to the performing arts in Pasadena and even greater L.A.”
Brantwood is part of a growing trend at the beginning of the senior housing continuum. Data by the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care shows that as of October 2022, there were more than 500 active adult rental properties and 73,000 units across 43 states.
Many investors and developers see the active adult segment as a way to meet the needs of boomers now rather than wait for them to age into independent or assisted living, according to the NIC.
That Brantwood is in a dynamic and diverse neighborhood centered on culture and art is a plus, offering residents the freedom to come and go as they please.
“When we worked with a consultant early on, he said, ‘This is perfect’ for what we’re talking about,” said developer Ken Mccormick, who manages Mill Creek Properties with his wife, Tracy. “It’s an urban destination for seniors.”
Within walking distance of Brantwood are trendy restaurants, cafes, arts and entertainment venues, and independently owned specialty shops.
Medical facilities, a pharmacy, houses of worship, colleges and parks are also nearby.
Mill Creek Properties’ other developments in the area include Granada Court, which has 31 units with one, two, and three bedrooms, and The Anda
lucia, which has 118 units with studios and one- and two-bedroom layouts.
Two other buildings— Easton, a nine-unit condo building, and Catalonia, an 81-apartment complex with some affordable units—are being built across the street from Brantwood, the developer’s only active adult lifestyle community.
Architecturally, Brantwood blends with the surrounding 1920s Mediterranean-style buildings, as if it has been a part of the area for generations.
Ornate wrought-iron gates open to a Mediterranean-style courtyard anchored by a tiered fountain and landscaped with olive trees and camellias. Wallmounted sculptures, or reliefs, adorn the facade that leads to the entrance of the building.
Behind the towering, wood-carved doors, an expansive, light-filled great room comes into view. It has a high, wood-beamed ceiling, Saltillo-tiled floors, and California plein-air art on the walls—san Gabriel River, Pebble Beach, mountain meadows, and desertscapes. Half of the artists lived in Pasadena and the surrounding area.
“My wife and I are interested in the interface of the art trends in Europe at the end of the 19th century and in California at the beginning of the 20th century,” Mccormick said, standing in the great room of the building that borrows its name from the estate where John Ruskin, a Victorian-era British art critic and prominent figure of the Arts and Crafts Movement, retired in Cumbria, England.
William Morris, a British textile designer who shared Ruskin’s passion for the movement, also inspired Brantwood, as seen in the apartment-level elevator landings, which feature different Morris wallpaper designs.
A botanical Morris tapestry hangs off the great room, which features an oversized wet bar.
Designated gathering areas are comfortably furnished for dining or relaxing by the fire of a large antique stone fireplace imported from France.
Residents have access to these and other common areas, including the library, which has sage Farrow and Ball green walls, built-in shelves, a salvaged European fireplace and French doors that open onto the front courtyard.
There are a gym off the rear courtyard and a rooftop garden.
The rooftop garden has a brick patio, brick-lined walkways over crushed granite, and raised planting beds with rows of lavender and rosemary, artichokes, fragrant camellia, grapevines, and fruiting citrus trees. It provides sweeping 360-degree views of the San Gabriel Mountains, Pasadena City Hall, the Prayer Garden at Fuller Theological Seminary, San Rafael Hills, and beyond.
Views also abound from the unfurnished apartments. Units on the second level feature patios, and those on levels three, four and five have small balconies that can accommodate a small bistro table and chairs.
The two-bedroom, 1,235-square-foot apartment model that Ashworth and Darling showed has two balconies off the main living room, which opens to a dining area and a whitetiled kitchen with a center island.
“There’s one floor plan with a completely separate kitchen,but they’re all fairly open,” Ashworth said between showings. “And if any of these need to be adapted for the ADA, they could be.”
Doors off the main living space to an in-unit washer and dryer.
Each of the airy bedrooms boasts window views, roomy walk-in closets and spacious bathrooms. One has a tub shower, and the other has a walk-in shower.
The rent is $8,250 monthly and includes 24hour security, housekeeping, technical support, concierge services, fitness classes and a chef-prepared Mediterranean-style meal daily.
As developer Mccormick puts it, “This is a place to downsize and live an urban life in a communitylike setting.”