Cottages House Elderly Close to Family

Dilemma: Your grandparents can’t keep up their big house and they don’t want to move to a retirement home.

Solution: A portable, factory-built cottage for your back yard.

Developer J. Robert Gillette calls the cottages America’s answer to Australia’s “granny flats.”

A cottage, which can be hooked up to household utilities, sells for about $50,000 or can be rented at $600 to $700 a month. Then an elderly relative can live nearby without crowding the family.

Gillette wants the first cottages to be built on the grounds of senior citizen complexes. Cottage occupants will have more privacy and pay less than residents of the complex itself, but still have easy access to social gatherings, meals and services such as laundry.

Trial programs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Texas and California have shown that what the American Assn. of Retired Persons calls the Elder Cottage Housing Opportunity can work.

“It’s very cozy,” Pauline Wessner, 85, said in an interview at the ECHO cottage she has occupied for two years near Belvedere, N.J.

Wessner’s grandson thought of her when the county Office on Aging announced an ECHO trial program. He had bought the house where she lived for nearly 40 years, and she had moved to an apartment. She said: “It was too much work for me to mow the grass and everything else.”

“I live right next door to my grandson now, about 45 feet from his house,” she said.

The county bought the cottage and leases it to her for at rent that is based on her Social Security income. She has a bedroom, a bathroom, a parlor and a fully equipped kitchen.

Perhaps 100 of the little houses have been set up nationwide, said Leah Dobkin of the AARP in Washington. The AARP has published outlines for developers and local governments about zoning, parking and other issues.

It’s better than backing a trailer in, Dobkin said. “These are specially designed for the elderly, and they meet all housing codes,” she said.

Gillette’s cottage plans show ramps for people who don’t want to climb stairs, wide doors, bathtub rails and kitchen sinks without the usual cabinets underneath that keep wheelchair users at arm’s length.

Gillette said he’ll erect four cottages at the American House Dearborn Heights, Mich., complex by spring.

That the cottages are detached is a key for people such as Wessner, who want to live near their families but not in the same house.

“That wouldn’t go,” Wessner said. “They have two teen-agers who like loud music. Grandma’s a little too old for that now.”

“My grandson stops in every morning with the newspaper for me. They invite me over, which I appreciate. I go over there on Sunday for coffee and a bun.”

On holidays, she said, “We eat together. Unless I’m invited somewhere else.”