Conceived as a dignified setting where to age in place, the new buildings straddle Central Avenue and face scenic Orange Lake in downtown New Port Richey, Pasco County. In its 1920s heyday, this City became a popular winter spot for Hollywood silent movie stars, with the beloved Hacienda Hotel, Meighan Theater, and other Mediterranean revival structures of Spanish influence to show for it.

The design responds to the multiplicity of the urban context, where continuous Main Street and Grand Avenue one-story shops are in juxtaposition with large detached houses on Circle Boulevard and with a tighter neighborhood fabric to the East. In order to accomplish better access control and avoid redundancy of expensive vertical circulation systems, the sixty dwelling units proposed are mostly distributed in two large buildings. The largest one to the South engages Circle Boulevard as a continuous façade with alternating portions set back, defining semi-detached pavilions or apartment houses that approximate the scale of existing structures on this thoroughfare.  At the confluence with Central Avenue, the massing recess is made deeper on the North side, defining a pedestrian piazza that benefits from exposed visibility, when approached from downtown, and frames a gateway to the older historic neighborhood via the new landmark tower and the higher building volumes on both sides of the street. A smaller detached building with dwelling units and the Manager Cottage provide a transition in height, scale, and front yard setback along Adam Street.

At grade level, Live-work units along Circle Boulevard and Central Avenue extend downtown commercial activity around the lake, animating the waterfront. They also provide elderly residents with the opportunity to collaborate with younger entrepreneurs looking for mentorship, whom to transfer their experience and knowhow.  While the Dining Hall and the Fitness and Business centers in the northern building are for exclusive use of residents and their guests, the Art Gallery on Central Avenue is a venue for their creative expression, a cultural space for promoting local artists, and a civic room for coordinated community meetings. Likewise, the public Café at the corner piazza is an engine of social interaction and civilized, urbane lifestyle, as well as an additional source of income.

Drawing from the local heritage, we looked further beyond to the Alhambra and Generalife in Spain for inspiration, creating a necklace of securable gardens for meditation, relaxation, fish harvesting and vegetable growing, and setting the residences’ architectural syntax.