What happens at a lot of retirement communities is that people go to architects, and architects look like, “This is what you should build.” Right. And the community itself doesn’t have a vision for what it wants.
And so they get whatever the architect says. Hey, this would be a cool thing for you to have. But Garden Spot comes at it from a little bit different perspective.
We have a vision, right?
And then we go and find people to help us fulfill that vision. Hello, I’m Scott Miller, the chief marketing officer at Garden Spot Communities, and I’m Juanita Fox, the storyteller. So this season of purpose and retirement, we’re going to be talking with people whose stories appeared in the articles published in the fall 2026 issue of Destination Garden Spot Communities magazine.
Today’s episode is a little different. Instead of bringing in a guest, Scott and I wanted to sit down and talk about the vision behind the Sycamore Springs expansion. As a senior leader at Garden Spot, he spent more than 20 years helping to shape the vision behind the Sycamore Springs neighborhood. 20 years is a long time to hold on to an idea.
Take us back. What did the early vision for Sycamore Springs actually look like when leadership first started dreaming about it?
So I got to sort of get control of myself here because I could go into the entire vision.
Right. So but to go back to the very beginning, when I joined one, when I joined Garden Spot, it’s like over 20 years ago, one of the first things we were talking about is like, what are we going to do with this land that we’ve got?
Like, how is that going to develop? And so, interestingly enough, we named it Sycamore Springs, right. The other name we were considering, I believe, was The Residences at Mill Creek.
And so we actually had two Mill Creeks, you know, that the tributary goes down through the property. And so we’re actually going back and forth on both of those different things.
And the original idea, when we were thinking about it, was like, do we do a straight-up fee-simple 55-plus community? And because then we could build the houses, we’d still have involvement. It would be a Garden Spot thing. But as we thought about it, it didn’t make much sense to us because it doesn’t fit the continuing care retirement community model.
We would just sell the houses, and then people would go off and do what they wanted.
Even if we structured it with leases, you know, different types of things. So that was one of the early things that we had talked about. Does that make sense then?
Eventually, we moved off that and looked at a whole variety of other things.
It’s interesting looking back, because so much of what we imagined then is finally taking shape now. What stands out to you most about how that early thinking compares to what’s actually been built?
So it’s the journey; it’s been a fascinating journey. So, like I said, we originally thought about, like, do we do this as a 55 plus and that just fee simple 55, and that wasn’t making sense.
And so then we were like, okay, so what is the model like?
What are we going to do? What is the model? And then we looked at a variety of different things.
Then, a number of years after we had started talking, we came across co-housing. We talked to Chuck Duret from Nevada City, and we were talking to him about co-housing and what that might mean.
And co-housing has some really, really cool aspects to it because it came from Europe, primarily the Netherlands. Denmark was sort of the model for co-housing, and it’s very specific in its sense of community because we always knew we wanted a really strong one.
That’s one of the things that Garden Spot focuses on: community.
And so the cool thing about co-housing is they actually did the studies, and I think, don’t quote me on these numbers, they’re going to be in the thing here. But it’s like the distance between front porches; if it’s like 70ft, that creates community. If you’re much closer than that, you start to feel like you’re on top of each other.
And if you’re further away than that, then it feels disconnected. And so it was things like that. And the cohousing communities, they all had front porches.
The kitchens are all in the very front so that, you know, you could be on your front porch and people are walking by, and you can talk to them. Or if you’re standing in your kitchen, you have the window open, people are walking by, hey, you can talk to your neighbors.
And so the co-housing has all these little interesting details that help create community. And so we looked at that, and then one of the aspects of co-housing, however, is that, like, the social network is so strong; every person that lives in the community has to come to every meeting to talk about, like, who’s going to mow our grass?
I mean, so like it really gets intense.
And that wasn’t working for us either. And so, like, at the end, co-housing is not working. We sort of backed away from that.
And then we found another developer who was doing a co-housing project in Washington called Pocket Neighborhoods. And Pocket Neighborhoods were really developed for urban infill.
So she would take a block in a city and then build houses there in a community style, using co-housing ideas. And that turned out to be really cool for us because it didn’t have that social structure that we were talking about.
But it also looked at how do you place homes and how do you create privacy or, or, privacy and a feeling of like, oh, I’m in my house, but I’m not right on top of each other?
Because if you think about a town that’s got row houses, when you look down, when you stand in a row house, if you’re in the front, you just look down, like you’re looking down the streets, everybody’s windows.
So for pocket neighborhoods, for example, the houses are only 15 or 20ft apart, but they have an open side and a closed side.
And the open side has many windows. You get a lot of light into it. But then on the closed side, all the windows are very, very high. So you’re not looking into your neighbor’s home through your windows. So there again, the pocket neighborhood just had this whole sort of a cool and interesting aspect to it.
And that’s when we built the first 77 houses at Sycamore Springs, all individual houses. Right.
But just really cool neighborhoods.
That creates that sense of community. So as we’re beginning to expand next, do you want to talk about the overall vision for Sycamore Springs? Because we’ve done that single-family home phase of 77.
The next phase is a low-rise, villa-style, boutique-style apartment building. How does that fit into the overall vision? And I think that’s kind of cool as it evolved over the course of time.
You know, what happens at a lot of retirement communities is that people go to architects, and architects look like This is what you should build, right?
And the community itself doesn’t have a vision for what it wants. And so they get whatever the architect says, hey, this would be a cool thing for you to have. What comes out of it is from a slightly different perspective. We have a vision, right? And then we go and find people to help us fulfill that vision.
So, as we looked at the characteristics of what we were building, we came across another model: Sarandi.
It’s an Atlanta, which is just a really cool community building model. But one of the things that we learned from them is the whole sense of placemaking and the creation of a small-town atmosphere, because if you think about a small town, when you drive into a small town like around here, a Mannheim or a little, it’s even for Lancaster, as you come into the urban space where the small town is, you’ll see single-family homes coming in.
Right? And you don’t notice this unless you pay attention to it. So there’s this very, very low density when you come into the town. And as you move into the town, the buildings start to get a little bit bigger.
Things get closer; the density increases until you get into the center of town, where you just have this really cool environment where all of the shops are, and the people come, and the community and neighbors come there as the hub.
And so that is what this new Sycamore Springs, the downtown with Beacon Plaza, is really focused on. So we already did the houses. Now, as you come in, we get that mid-rise; now you get a greater density. You got Beacon Plaza, which is the center of life in the community.
And then we have the Arts Center that will be there.
So that’ll create things for people to come in and to do. And then, on the lower end, there will eventually be more houses. And so you get this rise and fall in density, just like a small town.
And so that’s really what the vision is to create a small town.
And the other thing that goes along with that is that when you look at retirement communities for Garden Spot now, and this is wonderful, because if you move into an apartment in Garden Spot, there’s 1,000,000ft² that’s under roof, like you can go and you can do anything. You can have a six-foot snowstorm outside.
You can still get to the pool and go for a swim, right?
If you’re in there. And so what the new Sycamore Springs does is take that model and turn it inside out, where all the amenities are inside; whereas at Beacon Plaza, the way the campus is currently structured, the amenities are going to be outside. So, like, you’ll have this. So you get this wonderful combination of, oh, we have everything under one roof, but then we have this creation of a small town where all of the things on the main street, the amenities, are all along the outside street.
So, like, it is; literally, in all the communities I’ve looked at, there’s probably some out there. I just haven’t come across anything that kind of, sort of, fulfills the vision of the nature that we’re working on. It’s really one of those cool environments that could be.
And so it has been a wonderful blessing for me to be involved with all of this, to be a part of it.
So the article talks about sparking a revolution. That’s the vision feature for Garden Spot Communities, you know, how would you say we live that out in real life versus, you know, really cool marketing copy? Yeah, I know that was one of the things that really stood out for me. And being involved in marketing all these years, I used to go to these communities in my career, see these brochures, and be like, wow, I want to go see this place.
And you wind up going there and like it.
Like the brochure doesn’t represent the environment, which was nearly as good, not nearly as good as the brochure was. So that has always really been really sensitive to that. And you are, too, which I appreciate, because we want to make sure we represent Garden Spot properly.
So when people show up, as the brochures represent. And I think the cool thing is people have said over time that, like, this is actually better than the brochures, which is the greatest compliment. And so that has a lot to do with your team. So well done, as with everything you do.
But coming back to us, sparking a pro-aging revolution, I think that, like, I think I’m going to flip that back to you because, as a storyteller, you talk to so many people with their stories, like, how do you see that playing out?
Yeah. So, in every issue of Destination, we kind of look for people living a lifestyle we’d call pro-aging, right? People doing things that you don’t expect, like running marathons, going to Africa on a mission trip. In this issue, we’re going to talk to people who got in their cars in New Holland and drove all the way to the West Coast to experience what the southwestern United States looks like, because they had never been there before.
And, in fact, they actually want, like, the wife wanted to tent.
And the husband said, oh, maybe we should stay in hotels this time around, right. But this idea that we reject can’t, won’t and shouldn’t just because of our age, right. So we’ve got that you, instead of saying, “well, I shouldn’t do this anymore because I’m, you know, this age now.”
No, it’s more like, why can’t I do this? Why can’t I do something amazing? So other stories that we’re going to be talking about are, you know, that intergenerational piece. I think that sparking a revolution fits into that intergenerational interaction, which is so critical in many different ways. So we have a group of residents at Garden Spot Village who host a camp for third- and fourth-graders through local social services organizations.
So, cross juniors, what it’s called. Right.
So these kids come and they teach them all about beekeeping and sewing and woodworking.
And, you know, those are the kinds of stories that we hear every day that residents are doing. So it’s not just cool marketing copy, right? It is really cool marketing copy, but it is. It is so much more than that, because we get to prove it out in those individual stories every day.
You make me think of Tom, who was just here, right? You just did a podcast with us. He says, look at this.
He says, I’m 74 years old. I’ve never done this before.
He says, ” This is so cool. I’m doing things I’ve never done right. And Sue, his sister. She’s like, yeah, she’s like, yeah, I’m just doing things like I’m traveling, like all the things that I, that I can possibly do.
And you know, not to go off on the wisdom course, I can talk about that forever.
But I think that, you know, one of the things that just sticks out for me in the wisdom course is that Angelis Aaron, who is a cultural anthropologist, says that one of the things in our culture today is that we are suffering from a lack of character and a weakness of heart, and what she means by that.
And she said what she attributes that to is the fact that our society no longer honors the elders. That’s not every old person, right? That’s people who have done the work, who have looked at their lives, who’ve harvested the wisdom, and who are committed to speaking into others’ lives and helping them navigate theirs.
And she says that one of the reasons our society is the way it is is that we have lost the role of the elder. And I think that one of the things that we’re seeing is that that’s coming back.
Right. The wisdom course is intended to do that. People are traveling.
And so that’s sparking a pro-aging revolution.
Is that. Yeah. Just the second half of life is full of opportunity, not the way our society has looked at it, which is, oh, now it’s time to go sit in a rocking chair.
Right. So, I even need to fix this part of my body so I look better, right?
I look younger, like that pursuit of youth isn’t necessarily the most critical piece to do in this second half of life. It’s more about the pursuit of wisdom, the pursuit of what impact I’m going to leave on the next generation.
Back in Sycamore Springs, the neighborhood is described as feeling like a small town, with buildings that follow the curve of the street rather than a cookie-cutter layout.
Why was that individuality so important to get right? You know, I think it comes back to we were talking about the vision, right? And we’re looking at, you know, other environments. It’s like people just take what is handed to them and say, oh, this is what we should build.
And when you think about, like, what do you want to create?
And the primary vision was to create a sense of community. That’s another thing.
Our culture has lost a sense of community. And what we see is that people in the second half of life now, they’re like, I want community, right? That is what they want. And so when you to create, you can do things that are very purposeful in creating a sense of community because they bring people together in a social way where you just sort of naturally get into conversations and get to know each other.
That doesn’t mean you always have to engage in it; you can withdraw from it if you want to, personally, but you can have as much community as you want or as little as you want.
Right? But the way that everything is constructed with the Beacon Plaza and the apartments that are right there, and like I think we have three outdoor terraces that are going to look down on Beacon Plaza, where there is a performance pavilion, and you can envision food trucks in there.
And like, all of this life is going to be happening in Beacon Plaza. And so the houses and the apartments, the villas are all surrounding that. And they play a critical role in providing not only a wonderful place to live with great amenities. And, you know, all of the, all of, you know, that’s sort of a wonderful thing, but you get to look out into what’s happening at Beacon Plaza.
And that in itself creates a sense of life because you see, like, what’s going on and you want to be involved with it. Right.
And the main street will be the same way. And so it’s not just a cookie-cutter; everything looks the same. And it was one of the things we picked up at ceremony. You go to ceremony, Surbhi looks like it’s been there for 100 years, but it’s only been there for far less than that because they built a brand new.
And so, just giving a nod to the way that communities evolve over time, I think it’s just a cool aspect of everything that’s coming together.
And I like the way the community is following the ebb and flow of the landscape to that. We’re not forcing the landscape to fit our plan, but we’re taking the landscape as it is and fitting the community around it.
Like, even, you know, the floodplain that we’re restoring is going to be a really interesting dynamic to the community. It’s going to look really cool. It’s going to feel authentic and real. Where in the past we may have forced that floodplain to cooperate with us. We’re taking the floodplain, rebuilding it, restoring it, and saying, how do we build a meaningful community around it?
I think it’s pretty cool. And one of the cool things about that is, depending on where your residence is, you can walk out your back door, and you’re going to be in nature, right?
You can walk out your front door and you’ll be out on the front street.
So it is just a really cool combination between, like, wow, I get the best of all worlds, right?
And it’s nestled kind of at the foot of the Welsh mountain, which gives you some really beautiful views to the south and the east. So I think it’s going to be a really cool space. And the intent, the intent with all of the shops, the bakeries, the food, is like it’s open to the community; it’s for the general community to come in and be a part of.
And so it’s not like it’s an island unto itself. It’s, it’s that vision of, like, how can we be a good neighbor and provide something for the community around us so that everybody can participate, right?
Yeah. As I said, it’s really cool. Yeah. We’re excited just a little bit. So you mentioned that Beacon Plaza is meant to be kind of the heartbeat of the community when this is all built out and the programming is figured out.
What do you imagine a normal Tuesday night might feel like?
Wow, a normal Tuesday night?
Like, you know, I think it’ll be like one of those things where, like, right now, you look at the special dining events that we have. So there will be special dining events. We had a lobster truck the other day. Right.
And so again, like a Tuesday night, I can just view, like, a lobster truck, like, or a food truck, and maybe it’s, maybe it’s, I don’t know, you know, fresh crabs, whatever it is.
But something that’s happening in the Plaza that’s really sort of interesting and exciting that you wouldn’t expect on a Tuesday night in other places, because, like, in the general world, quote, the general world, people are going to work every day. Well, here it’s an environment where we’re creating community; we’re trying to create life.
And so those things will be happening in and around Beacon Plaza.
Plus, the shops will be open. So you can imagine, like, the food trucks there, people are getting stuff that people have, their grandkids that have come over. There are kids out playing in the yard.
I mean, I can see, like, a trim, like you’re inside a Garden Spot now on a Tuesday night.
There’s a lot of life. There’s a tremendous amount of stuff happening.
Right.
It’s a game night, I think Tuesdays are game night now, like, there are people all over the place doing all kinds of different things on Tuesday nights. And so I just envisioned something similar in an outdoor environment. And whether it’s hot or cold, because with heated lamps and stuff, you can do a lot outside and, you know, most of the year.
So I think it would be really active and dynamic. Yeah, that’s what I envision. So let’s talk a little bit about the Center for Arts and Culture.
Where did the idea come from to build something that ambitious in a retirement community? So the Center for Arts and Culture came from the residence, because the chapel at Garden Spot Village is the current space for theater events, lectures and all the different things that take place from an educational point of view.
And the residents just said, like, we need more space; there’s not enough room in here. And so, years and years ago, we started to look at what it would look like if we had a center for arts and culture. And so that was another vision. It’s evolved over time because those things are very expensive.
And so we had to look at it and how we can get the best out of how we can get the best environment at a cost that, you know, we can handle and like all of those different types of things.
And so I think that we’re wound up is just really sort of cool because we had a look again at what’s happening.
How do we create an environment that has multiple uses? I mean, just the fact that the seats- very comfortable seats that are going to retract- and you can have a theater one minute and open the whole thing up and have hundreds of people set up for a dining event, you know, and not that short time later. So I think it’s going to be just one of those sort of things.
But that’s where the original vision started. The residents said, hey, we need this.
And so, as an organization, we said, well, how can we make that happen? In a way that’s not going to cost so much that we can’t possibly do it. So, yeah, I think that’s one of the things that’s exciting about the Center for Arts and Culture.
You know, sometimes it takes us a while to reach the final result, but in the process, the iterations teach us something new.
And so I think as we look at what it’s eventually going to look like, it is going to be so far ahead of what we imagined ten years ago, right? Yeah. That will be just amazing, you know, how far technology has come; the idea of the retractable seats, the idea of thinking about space in a different way of taking this journey to get there, has allowed us to take the time to do it well and do it right.
Yeah. Steve talks about the slow hunch, right? I mean, things come together. It’s usually the time that they come together. Like, if we had done this, if we actually had this 5 or 6, eight, ten years ago, you think of video and the way it’s used in theaters now, like it wasn’t there then.
And now we’ll have the capability to do projections and other things.
You can have really high-class theatrical productions that we can use the video in.
It’s, I think, really amazing. Yeah, yeah. I think the traditional stage theater, right, in some ways has evolved so much that we’re now going to be maybe not on the bleeding edge, but maybe the cutting edge of what is happening next.
And it’ll feel unique and innovative in a way that it wouldn’t have in the past. Yeah. So you talked a little bit about not being an island unto ourselves, but how do you see the Center for Arts and Culture really fitting into that initial vision from Dale Weaver, one of the co-founders of Garden Spot Village?
To not be an island unto our selves, but to server community. Well, I think that’s really important: that the Garden Spot does its best to be a good neighbor.
And I remember when I met Dale, he said that same thing all those years ago: that we should never be just isolated in ourselves. That’s why we do Swipe Out Hunger, and we support Cross Net and all these different things that take place as a community.
And so as I look at the Center for Arts and Culture, like, right at the top of my mind is that Gretna Theater is going to be their home base other than the summer.
So, we’ve automatically reached out to the community. To support an organization that was looking for space and other things they needed to do.
So it wasn’t just right there locally. I mean, they’re from Mount Gretna. So I think that’s really sort of a cool and interesting thing. But then the performances will be open to the public.
There are all those things that people can come in and do and participate in. And not just from the perspective that it’s all entertainment, but that it’s learning.
It’s bringing in high school groups and theater groups that can be involved and share in that environment. And so, like, all of that involves the community. But then when the shows are actually done, and they’re open to the community, I, I can just see what happens, like maybe it’s a Thursday night, not a Tuesday night.
There’s a performance at the Center for Arts and Culture.
People come over; they grab dinner, like at Beacon Plaza. They walk right up the street and they, you know, they enjoy the show, and then they come out afterward and like, there’s an ice cream truck, or there’s an ice cream shop that’s open or something like that, you know, that just makes it one of those really cool experiences that obviously the people of Garden Spot can enjoy, right?
But it’s open to the local community. So anybody in the area can come. And so I think, and it was designed when we looked at the design for the Center for Arts and Culture, we asked, what does eastern Lancaster County need? And so it really satisfies a need in the broader eastern Lancaster County area.
And so, yeah, it’s like that not an island and it contributes to the local community. Yeah.
The same vision is also showing up for Frederick Living with the new apartment expansion.
How do you extend that sense of purpose across communities? So, you know, when we look at what has happened with Garden Spot Communities, we have Garden Spot Village and Frederick Living; we joined with Frederick Living several years ago.
We just opened the exchange in Harrisburg, which is another community. And so, when we look at this idea of purpose and community, it’s the purpose that fuels our lives; without purpose, you know, the research shows how important it is in our lives. And a lot of times you can’t pick the purpose, right?
The purpose, it just shows up, and you live into it. So in addition to the community, the idea of purpose is one of the things that draws people to Garden Spot Community in general.
And at Frederick Living, we have expansions coming in. As we look at what happens and develops on that campus, we have the apartment units coming up.
I think 45 apartments will be offered.
But then, we internally, what had been known as the Body Shop, which was the fitness center, just moved into- we just expanded that into a much larger and, like, state-of-the-art environment for that whole wellness center.
So that has changed, and some of the interior spaces where you come into the Frederick Living to meet with others will be changing as well. Along the lines of what we talked about is that creation of a sense of community. And so what we see, and we did that same thing with the exchange.
We create the environments to create community. And when you engage in community, you talk to others who invite you to do things, and your purpose grows.
And so community and purpose are just tied together. And so it’s one of those things that we have paid extreme attention to. Yes. About my, you know.
Over the last 20 years, we’ve paid extreme attention to how we create these things so that people can live their absolute best life, and how we bring back that sense of the wise elder into our culture that can help others navigate, to actually feel that responsibility, to help, you know, contribute to others,
to the local community around them and to other people’s lives. And so just working towards that. So there again, even with all the communities developing under the Garden Spot brand, they have that, which is so cool.
Yeah, I think it’s so cool. So if you fast-forward to the day when this is all finished, the villas, the Beacon Plaza, the Center for Arts and Culture.
What do you want people to feel the first time they walk through it? I want them to feel like I am home like this.
That not only am I home, but this is where I belong.
Like the sense that they wound up. They wound up there because life directed them there, for something more. And so it’s just where they belong, and the sense of wonderful anticipation for what the future holds.
If you would like to read more about the vision for Sycamore Springs, the center for Arts and Culture, or the expansion at Frederick Living. Check out the articles in the fall 2026 issue of Destination Gardens Spot Communities. The link is in the show notes.
Thank you for listening to Purpose and Retirement. Our hosts are Scott Miller and Juanita Fox, and our audio engineer and producer is Austin Gingerich.