Photos Andy Calvert
The Spires at Berry College is celebrating their first five years of cultivating community. The collective efforts of the Spires staff and residents and the Berry College students have blossomed into a thriving locale, where residents and students can learn, bond, and enjoy life. As the staff continue working for the benefit of their residents, they eagerly pave the way for more to join them.
Inspired by Martha Berry’s mission to create a college that values industry and learning, the Spires at Berry College is a continuing care resident community that allows college students and retirees to learn, grow, and enjoy life together.
Life at The Spires is an opportunity for residents to live brilliantly. Days are spent organizing book club meetings and meditation groups; lounging in the bar for four o’clock drinks; attending lectures led by Berry College professors. Residents shape their own experiences. While the staff is there to make their lives easier, their focus is always on supporting residents as they pave the way for the desired life.
The Spires at Berry College is approaching its fifth anniversary, celebrating five years of hard work, growth, and community. Since its opening in 2020, The Spires has grown into a flourishing community, with 352 residents calling it their home.
The idea for The Spires originally came from a Berry College initiative. One of the college’s core tenets has always been to put their student’s abilities to use both within the college and its wider community. Using the spacious grounds of the campus, they believed it would be an ideal location for a retirement community, and one where the residents and students could both benefit.
With the combined knowledge of the residents and the curiosity of the students, The Spires fosters a unique companionship between the two.
-
- Evoto
Laurie Steber, executive director, and Sara Bingham, director of sales, express how endearing it has been to watch these companionships develop. Residents take on the roles of both mentors and stand-in-grandparents to many of the students and make the effort to support them as often as they can. Laurie says, “The residents are at every sporting event, and every play, and every musical show. It’s seamless back-and-forth, cause we really are part of their campus.”
Residents treat students as if they’re family—fixing their cars, helping them get ready for dances, inviting them to Mother’s Day tea. “It’s nice to have 350 grandparents over here,” Laurie says. Being present in students’ lives is a cornerstone of the community. It allows residents to infuse the Berry College experience with a more comforting, vibrant atmosphere than students receive from the traditional college experience alone.
And life at The Spires is only enhanced by the students. The Spires gives students opportunities to both volunteer or work in the community as exercise instructors, student nurses, servers, and more. Outside of work, students spend one-on-one time with the residents, talking in the dining hall, playing music for them, and discussing classwork with them.
“The college has been incredibly warm and welcoming,” Sara says. “They’re very intentional in terms of making our residents feel like an extension of their campus, like an extension of their student population.”
Beyond their collaboration with Berry College, The Spires has also established itself as a thriving retirement community that stands on its own. The staff works endlessly to create an enriching experience tailored to each of their residents. Underscoring these experiences has also been a continuous sense of family between the staff and the residents, where both feel at home.
The staff knew they would have a lot to take on when they opened their doors in June of 2020. COVID-19 was on everyone’s minds, and it was a special point of care for The Spires. They took great care in providing a safe, comfortable transition for their incoming residents, and were surprised to find that it drew everyone much closer than expected.
Laurie says that going through COVID together “really created a wonderful foundation of family, care, and love, because we became that for each other right away.”
With this foundation of family, the staff makes a point to understand each resident as an individual. They give each person the assurance they will be cared for with the same level of detail, diligence, and determination they would want for their loved ones. Sara says, “We know everybody’s names; we know where everybody is in their aging process. We get to know these residents like we’re an extension of their family and are able to support them through aging just like their family would.”
Creating a sense of home makes The Spires feel like one big neighborhood, and it is treated as such. Residents are welcome to roam the campus as they please. An average day could start with a dip in the pool, followed by a stroll on Berry grounds, some time to yourself at home, then a relaxing evening in the community lounge. Within the community, residents can go about in their bathrobes if they want—what’s important to the staff is that they feel at home.
The residents are not only partial to the more relaxing aspects of The Spires, though. Nestled within The Spires is a bustling neighborhood of driven minds ready to soar at every opportunity.
Although the staff keeps the community running, they often find themselves sprinting to keep up with them. With a resident-formed band, dance group, choral group, and more, the residents have paved the way for their lives in their new home. The Spire Pickers, Spire Strutters, Spire Singers, and Sunshiners are just a few of the resident-formed clubs. Paired with the daily activities provided by the staff, the residents have a plethora of opportunities for personal improvement and connection.
Some have even taken it upon themselves to pursue further education. Living on the Berry College campus gives the residents quick access to the educational benefits of the university. Naturally, the residents have optimized these benefits by asking professors to start a lecture series at the retirement community.
Beginning with a select few professors that residents personally asked to lecture, the series quickly took off. Approximately 65 professors and faculty members have presented, allowing residents to attend classes covering a variety of topics.
Traditional Berry courses have even integrated The Spires into their coursework. English professors assign narrative essays where students may interview residents about their lives. Communications courses arrange for students to present their work at The Spires, with residents acting as an audience. The retirement community is also an optimal space for student nurses to practice in a more realistic setting and familiarize themselves with programs such as memory care.
Combining their personal interests and the resources of The Spires, the community has developed a deep sense of zeal for life. “This community: it attracts a group of people who want to be present in mind and body,” Sara says, “and they still want to grow, and learn, and engage… It’s easy to see yourself here.”
Laurie and Sara stress the importance of The Spires’ view of retirement as an opportunity to embrace their “brilliantly wonderful lives,” as Laurie puts it. She goes on to say that “Our focus is to keep the residents vibrantly living. Just living vibrantly, and connected to each other, and with a purpose.”
Fulfillment comes in a multitude of forms; Laurie, Sara, and the rest of the staff seek to provide as many options as they can. From creating environments tailored to their desires to giving back to the greater community to improving one’s self, they have it all.
The staff—and even the residents—have organized programs and groups that benefit those around them. One resident-formed group, called the Sunshiners, organizes group visits to the community’s memory care center to boost their spirits. Another group gathers to make jewelry they can sell to fund a scholarship for the Berry students. And one of the residents arranged for everyone to make Christmas boxes for children in need last year, the final result adding up to 165 boxes.
To Laurie and Sara, The Spires is a culmination of everything these “brilliantly wonderful” minds have worked for, the summit of their lives.
Each day at The Spires is one worth choosing. Beyond being a retirement community or even a home, it is a place of rejuvenation. The residents, staff, and students revitalize each other and reshape the idea of retirement into an exciting opportunity for self-exploration and personal fulfillment.
For incoming residents, one of the community’s most desired options is the cottages, independent-living homes maintained by the community’s staff. Seven more of these cottages are in the works, allowing anywhere from seven to fourteen new residents to move in. The Spires hopes to gradually increase the capacity of the community to provide incoming residents with the same close-knit, homey atmosphere they have shared up to now.
The Spires is proud to provide residents with a side of life they haven’t had a chance to fulfill yet. This year, they are not only celebrating how they’ve grown in the last five years but where they will go in the years to come.
For more information, visit The Spires’ website at: https://www.retireatberry.com/
To schedule a tour or appointment or to request additional information, reach out to The Spires staff using their contact page: https://www.retireatberry.com/contact/
