Bigger nests for empty nesters

As the front edge of the baby boomers noses into retirement, you might think boomers are "thinking small" when it comes to homes -- as in less home to clean, less debt to shoulder, less nest to feel empty once the children are grown.

Indeed, that holds true for many older home buyers, housing experts say. But a significant portion of the maturing market is opting to go big -- or at least bigger.

In a 2006 survey of more than 6,300 households of people age 45 and over who had either recently moved or who were planning to move, 30% said moving to a larger home was a primary or secondary motivation. Only 23% said going smaller was a primary or secondary reason.

"Not everybody downsizes -- by far, not everybody downsizes," says Margaret Wylde, president of Promatura, the senior-focused research and consulting firm that did the survey.

Builders are paying attention. The National Association of Home Builders says that buyers over 50 -- baby boomers, empty nesters, pre-retirees -- are the housing market's fastest-growing category. People 55 or older bought nearly one-fifth of new homes sold in the U.S. in 2003.

Behind the numbers

So what's behind this trend? Are seniors today simply wealthier than their counterparts 30 or 40 years ago? That's part of it, says Wylde, noting the extraordinary transfer of wealth from the so-called "greatest generation" to these boomers. But also, seniors are not immune to the changing tastes of the American population at large, where bigger is often better.

"All housing has gotten bigger," Wylde says. "People have just gotten used to space. They're planning extra spaces in their house that they think they cannot live without," she says, mentioning home offices, which were once considered amenities but are now practically necessities.

Too, some of the upsizers are ex-downsizers. Marie Barksdale is one such convert.

Barksdale, 61, had lived in a 2,500-square-foot home in Clarksdale, Miss. When she decided to retire to Oxford, Miss., she thought she'd try something smaller: a three-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot home. She hated it.

"The bedrooms were so small you could hardly turn around in them. They were just tiny," recalls Barksdale. "I like to entertain, and there wasn't enough room."

And then there was the furniture problem. Barksdale had so much family furniture -- often treasured pieces that were generations old -- it took a year to make room for the car in the garage.

"I just went down too much," she recalls of the drop in size.

So she upsized -- to a four-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot home with airy ceilings. Upstairs is a den and a kitchenette. "It's a good house to have company in, because the guests can stay upstairs and have what they need. I just love my house."

The sandwich generation

Another factor driving upsizing is that as people are living longer, more boomers are finding themselves caring for their aged parents. "The greatest population growth right now is in the 80-plus segment," notes Mary Furlong, of Mary Furlong & Associates, a marketing and business-development firm specializing in the boomer and senior markets.

That's a big reason why, even though they were empty nesters, Lois Crissinger and her husband, Sam, started thinking that a new, bigger house was in order.

The Crissingers -- she's 54, he's 57 and the chief financial officer of an engineering firm -- raised three children in a 1,800-square-foot, ranch-style home in Florida. After the last child was out of college, Lois Crissinger’s parents moved across the street to be closer to the family.

But as those parents aged, the Crissingers decided they wanted the elderly couple under the same roof. "We wanted to build a house that had an apartment in it, so they could be right there with us," Lois Crissinger says. In May 2007, both couples moved into a 4,500-square-foot Colonial-type home outside of Jacksonville, Fla.

The 1,100-square-foot ground-floor apartment where Lois Crissinger’s parents live has a bedroom, a living room, a study and a kitchen. But perhaps most important to the Crissingers, the apartment is entirely handicapped-equipped to accommodate future needs: step-down showers, safety bars, doorways that accommodate wheelchairs, no stairs. (Read more about  for your golden years.)

The Crissingers are hardly alone in their desire for space for elderly parents, says Randy Long, chief operating officer of J.A. Long Design Builders in Jacksonville, Fla., the company that built the couple's home. Long says that of his company's 33 active projects last summer, about one-fourth involved retired couples and empty nesters who were upsizing -- sometimes to 5,500 square feet. The company often builds homes in the $400,000 to $1 million range.

"A big portion of it also is people planning on their parents coming to live with them," says Long. "And it's not even for sure. I hear a lot of worry about 'just in case.' "

The home as a 'studio'

What else are these empty nesters doing with this space?

"These big houses,  they're not the suburban house blown up" to a bigger size. "It's more a quest for identity in the space than it is for the size of the house," says consultant Furlong, author of the new book "Turning Silver into Gold."  Furlong says boomers and seniors today want several things out of a home, which she defines as "productivity, privacy and creativity." For example, "there's a giant uptick in the number of boomers starting small businesses" because they either don't trust that Social Security will provide the support they thought it would, or because they worry about hiccups in the stock market, she says. So elaborate home offices are big right now. And not just one.

"(A) trend I'm seeing is toward duplicate spaces," says Anne Olson, an architect whose firm specializes in housing for boomers. "Before, a house might have had one home office; now it's got his-and-her offices." , sometimes called "snoring rooms," are another manifestation of this trend.

But these homes are hardly all about work.

This group "wants a place to explore who they are next," Olson says. "They want to keep learning; they want to be known as 'Joanne the plein air artist,' or 'Tom who just went to cooking school and who just retrofitted his kitchen.' " And their homes need to let them pursue those passions. "A wonderful word to think about the new home is the 'studio,' " she says.

And finally, they want all of this in their home because they're sick of driving, says Furlong. "This guy said to me in a focus group: 'I was a mule for 30 years.' "

A place to hone a hobby -- and relax 

One of the people who can't wait to throw herself into her hobby is Laurie Ferguson. She's counting the days -- literally -- until she and her husband, Patrick, retire to their dream house in seaside Brookings, Ore.

"Three hundred seventy-six days," Ferguson recently tallied.      

Ferguson, who does the finances for the Leavey School of Business at California's Santa Clara University, has lived in the same 1,350-square-foot tract home for 19 years, raising four children there. "It's four bedroom, two bath,  but the rooms are fairly small," she says. Now that the Fergusons' children are grown, Laurie Ferguson uses one room as her sewing room.

Three and a half years ago, after looking for a quiet place to retire, the Fergusons bought a lot about one mile from the ocean in Brookings, near the California border. "I wanted a sewing room with an ocean view," Laurie Ferguson says of the lot.

Next spring the Fergusons will break ground on an architect-designed, 3,200-square-foot home that gives Laurie Ferguson plenty of room to exercise her talents. The sewing room is no longer a cramped former bedroom; it has a bay window that will look out on the Pacific. Built-in cabinets will house a high-tech sewing machine. Laurie Ferguson, who incorporates embroidery into her quilting and who sometimes embroiders clothing for her daughter and granddaughter, also wanted the ability to walk around a table when working. So the room will be 12 feet by 18 feet, with an island in the middle.       

Her husband hasn't been left out; he has an adjacent study. And since the couple love watching movies and sports together, their new house will have a special home theater room, to be decorated appropriately with movie posters.

"It's our dream home," Laurie Ferguson says. "We made the sacrifices here (in San Jose), driving Ford cars instead of Lexuses and BMWs, and just staying in the home we're at instead of moving up into bigger and bigger here, in order to retire in comfort," she says. "This is not something we thought about a year or two ago. We’ve been planning this for a good 15 years."

A fun hangout for the grandkids

Back in Florida, that 1,100-square-foot apartment doesn't explain all the new square footage in the Crissingers' home. The couple also wanted to accommodate the younger generation -- there are two grandchildren already, with a third on the way.

In addition to the master bedroom suite, the upstairs includes three more bedrooms, plus a bonus room that also functions as a playroom. "Our kids love to come home. That's an honor to us," Lois Crissinger explains. "We really wanted a place where we could enjoy being together as a family."

In addition to going bigger, empty nesters and graying boomers are even moving to desirable places in part to be fun to visit, say housing experts.  

When Trammell Wells of Memphis said he'd like to retire from his outdoor advertising business, he and his wife, Lynn, began to think about what they truly wanted. They decided to move 55 miles south to Oxford, Miss., home of his alma mater, Ole Miss, which his children also attended.

Their newly built 6,000-square-foot home reflects the hope that family ties -- and football games -- will bring the children and grandchildren home often.  "All of this was built with them in mind," says Lynn Wells, who designed a 1,000-square-foot barn for the couple to live in while their main house was built.

Upstairs, there's a playroom with a TV, chalkboard walls and floors that can't be ruined by spilled paint. "Everything was chosen specifically to be kid-friendly," Lynn Wells says. There are also three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom: one for the girls, one for the boys, and one for the parents. "I can sleep 14 -- as long as they don't mind sharing bathrooms," Lynn Wells says.

Doesn't it ever feel cavernous, or too much?

Never, she says flatly.  "We do love every square inch, and we do utilize every square inch. We have honestly said to each other that we can't imagine living in anything less."

In fact, there are even times when 6,000 square feet doesn't seem enough: The couple has used the garage for a playhouse, with a playwright friend putting on goofy, 10-minute plays.  "If you want to have a production, a play, you must move those boundaries out," she says with a laugh.

By Christopher Solomon