The community features a strong connection to nature, with miles of trails connecting homes and restaurants with arts and businesses, an edible landscape, an on-site labyrinth and acres of preserved forests and meadows – all with homes specifically designed for community living. “We want to bring wellness into a lifestyle that’s part of everyday life.” “Wellness has so many components, and that’s what we’re trying to talk about and help people understand,” says founder Steve Nygren. Each of Serenbe’s four hamlets has a different centre focused on the elements of a well life: arts, agriculture, health and education. ![]() Serenbe broke ground on its first house in 2004, and today, the community is home to more than 400 people. Professor Phillip Tabb created Serenbe’s masterplan “As the world gets crazier – especially in the US lately – the idea of the sanctuary home and the sanctuary community becomes more important.” “The golf course no longer constitutes a lifestyle,” says Brooke Warrick, president of market research firm American Lives. And that’s becoming more appealing to developers. Couple this with an ageing and financially flush baby boomer population, and it’s no wonder that the demand for wellness communities is growing dramatically.įinding connections – whether it’s through community activities, spending time in nature or intergenerational living – is something wellness communities aim to nourish. There’s also a growing awareness of the benefits of intergenerational living, while the American senior living communities leave much to be desired. “If you look at the amount of money we spend on healthcare in the US, and the amount of disease we have – most of which is preventable – you’ll understand why a lot of folks are starting to look for alternatives.” “We’re pretty sick in America,” says Steve Nygren, founder of Serenbe, a wellness community just outside Atlanta, Georgia. With more than two in three adults in the US overweight or obese, finding new ways to be healthy is a top priority for many Americans. “As people in America have started to recognise how unhealthy this kind of development is for both people and planet, there’s a growing impetus to try to build things that are better, and to experiment with new types of building.” ![]() ![]() “This includes poorly designed, unwalkable suburbs and exurbs insanely long commutes on congested highways big-box stores and strip malls cheap, low-quality, or cookie-cutter housing construction and poor zoning policies. “It’s important to remember that the US has been the epicentre of terrible car-dependent suburban sprawl for the past 75-plus years, and especially in the past 20 to 30 years,” says Katherine Johnston, senior research fellow at the Global Wellness Institute. Many of the first American wellness communities sprang from a need to protect cherished land. As populations have migrated to cities, a race for housing development has meant that countryside and farmland is fast disappearing. The US is a massive country, with a network of roads and parking lots rather than rails and trails. Perhaps nowhere are there quite as many in development – and in existence – as in the US.Ī combination of entrepreneurial spirit, an abundance of land, an unhealthy population, and a failing healthcare system have all contributed to this burgeoning industry. Around the world, wellness communities are on the rise, with real estate firms, investors and the public seeing the benefits of creating and living in areas dedicated to health.
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