Estate Living Magazine #liveyourbestlife - Issue 46 December 2019 | Page 24

P R O P E R T Y
&
I N V E S T M E N T
RETIRE
WITH LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE
Imagine a retirement community of like-minded people – of artists, academics, birders, mountain bikers,
anglers or retired nurses. It’s possible.
Did you see the 2012 movie Quartet? It was set in a retirement home
for professional musicians. The movie was pure fiction, but the
retirement facility was modelled on the real-life Casa di Riposo per
Musicisti (rest home for musicians) that was founded in Italy in 1896
by the composer Giuseppe Verdi, who later wrote: ‘Of all my works,
that which pleases me the most is the Casa that I had built in Milan
to shelter elderly singers who have not been favoured by fortune, or
who when they were young did not have the virtue of saving their
money.’
The Casa may be the first documented special-interest retirement
facility, but it’s an idea whose time has come. In the USA, for example,
there are an increasing number of retirement estates tailored for
specific lifestyles and interests, and South Africa can’t be far behind.
• Based on the same principles – although possibly at the other
end of the creative spectrum – as Casa, Nalcrest in Florida is an
affordable retirement option for retired postal workers founded