The new senior housing, from “dementia villages” to Margaritavilles

In 2009, a nursing home opened in Weesp, Netherlands, not far from Amsterdam, that was unlike any other in the world. It included a town square, a post office, and a theater. In its compact convenience store, residents could “shop” for milk, shampoo, and other necessities, but without the need to pay for anything. In this neighborhood, called Hogeweyk, all of the residents had dementia, and their environment was designed to allow them the quotidian pleasures of daily life, despite the illness that likely would have landed them in a hospital-like ward at a traditional nursing facility.