Retirement Communities

Residents of an upscale retirement community near here knew Douglas Hoffman was upset that trees were blocking his backyard view of the Strip. But at a hearing Monday, where Hoffman was sentenced to up to five years in prison for killing more than 500 trees, a prosecutor said the retired construction worker had threatened to unleash "chemical, biological, nuclear mass destruction" because of it.

The "aging in place" movement is fueled by changes throughout society. Services linked to retirement communities -- official or otherwise -- are not the only options for older Americans who want to remain in their homes. Networks of services: Across the nation, business people are forming networks, called Aging in Place Councils, in various cities to link seniors to services.

Irate residents of a southern Orange County retirement community called on their association board Wednesday to set limits on what they contend has been lavish spending by their property management company. Residents of Laguna Woods Village, a retirement community of 18,000, said financial records show property management staffers spent thousands of dollars on expensive birthday and holiday lunches and presents over the last several years.

The first generation of openly gay Americans chalked up a lot of firsts -- a gay-rights march in Washington, openly gay politicians in national office and out-of-the-closet actors on sitcoms. And now, this generation will be the first to have, just in time for its twilight years, gay senior condo communities. It's an extension of the gay ghetto, this time with walkers.

August may be a time for kicking back, but not for two entrepreneurs busy with start-up television networks catering to people who've stepped out of life's fast lane. A developer of retirement communities is launching a new network on Sept. 5 for that demographic. Initial programming on Retirement Living includes "The Doctor's Hour," with geriatric experts taking phone calls from viewers about their aches and pains.

The folks at Leisure World have heard it all -- Seizure World, Geezer World, God's Waiting Room. So forgive them if the jokes are wearing a little thin. Because of the tasteless quips, and because the Laguna Woods retirement community may soon have to pay to use the trademark, some residents are ready to ditch the name. There's nothing too leisurely, they say, about a place where senior citizens wait for a turn on treadmills and are pining for more Pilates classes.

Dorothy Turnbull and her husband, Bob, spent their 1950 honeymoon on a three-week voyage to Egypt on a freighter, accompanying four purebred Jersey cattle for a livestock improvement project. The Presbyterian missionaries then worked 37 years abroad, first in Egypt and later in Thailand, where they helped a community of people with leprosy (Hansen's disease) raise chickens, pigs and fish.

For people who grow up in the Northeast, life can feel like it's been planned out by a Florida real estate marketer. You go to work straight out of school, get married and wear yourself out trying to provide for your family, buy a nice house you can't afford near good schools for the kids and then after 45 years or so you cash it all in and head south. Boca Raton, maybe. Fort Lauderdale. Someplace warm, where in January you don't need the ice scraper for the car or salt for the sidewalk.

An uprising is brewing at Leisure World Laguna Woods: Residents are picketing, meetings are attracting hundreds and petitions signed by more than 4,000 people are demanding better fiscal management. "This too shall pass" is the mantra of frustrated retirement community officials, who have pledged to keep smiling. "It is a very vocal group," said Harry Curtis, president of the community's governing board. "I'm not sure that it's a long-term deal."

CENTRAL casting couldn't have made Stephen Saint-Onge's latest makeover project any easier. When the interior designer decided to transform a cottage at the Motion Picture & Television Fund's retirement community in Woodland Hills, among the residents he could have chosen as his costar were Hollywood costumers, cameramen, stage managers and actors, including House Peters Jr., son of a silent-film star and the first Mr. Clean in TV commercials. The role went, as they say, to a relative unknown.