Ribbon Cut on Perkins Eastman-Designed Maplewood at Stony Hill

By Jeffrey Steele, Contributing Writer

Stamford, Conn.—Maplewood at Stony Hill, a three-story, 84-unit memory care and assisted living facility in Bethel, Conn., recently had its grand opening. Officials of the Stamford office of the design and architecture firm Perkins Eastman, and by leaders and staff of the facility attended the ribbon cutting.

Located on a picturesque six-acre site in Fairfield County, Maplewood at Stony Hill is designed on a “small house model,” with apartments set within individual neighborhoods that impart a sense of home and comfort. Featured are a state-of-the-art Alzheimer’s Educational Resource Center, as well as amenities that include a spa, outdoor gardens, gathering spaces and terraces with water views.

“Perkins Eastman has more than 20 years of experience designing many of the country’s most state-of-the-art senior living campuses and facilities, and this includes some of the very first devoted to memory care,” J. David Hoglund, FAIA, LEED AP, principal and executive director of Perkins Eastman, tells MHN. “And we have invested that same amount of time into research and design work that includes dozens of assisted living and memory care facilities.”

Perkins Eastman also recently collaborated with the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America on a paper titled “Excellence in Design: Optimal Living Space for People with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias.”

Maplewood Senior Living is part of a small but growing number of providers aware that one of the keys to housing, treating and caring for those with Alzheimer’s is thoughtful design.

“They want to make their homes the best option out there for residents with varying treatment needs,” Hoglund says. “We are always looking for clients who take a forward thinking approach to treatment and senior care; and we want such providers to be seeking out like-minded design firms.”

In taking on the project, Perkins Eastman faced one special challenge, Hoglund recalls.

“When our Stamford team was brought onto the project, much of what the previous developer had outlined for the site was in place, in terms of schematics but not design,” he reports. “This meant we were somewhat constrained by the existing footprint of the site, and were obliged to design the highest quality memory care facility within a predetermined three stories of space.

“But this challenge was relatively easy to overcome. Using the surrounding landscape as inspiration, we created three distinct areas, one for each story—[an] outdoor garden on ground floor, sun room on second floor and terrace on third floor—that would become a focal point for its respective floor.”

Maplewood at Stony Hill is designed in a New England craftsman style, featuring small-scale, A-frame bungalows combined to form a larger building that will accommodate multiple residential communities.

“The ways we care for those with memory loss are changing and improving all the time, based on new research,” Hoglund says.