Moorings Park Grande Lake is a recipient of the 2022 ICAA® Pinnacle Award recognizing the community’s excellence in fostering wellness and promoting active aging.
Today’s boomers and seniors are looking for something more than a retirement community with higher levels of care. They are looking for a community that will help them stay healthy, active, and engaged. Where can they find these communities? A great place to start searching is Naples, Florida.
Located within minutes of Naples’ beautiful Gulf beaches sits Moorings Park Grande Lake, a community that has won the International Council on Active Aging® (ICAA®) NuStep Pinnacle Award in Senior Living, a recognition only granted to five retirement communities across North America. This group was distilled from the 25 winners of the ICAA® NuStep Beacon Award, which recognizes senior living communities in North America that are regarded as the “Best in Wellness.”
“As the industry’s competitive spirit continues to drive the wellness model forward, it is our privilege to honor organizations at the forefront,” says Colin Milner, International Council on Active Aging® founder and CEO.
Each of Moorings Park Communities’ three Naples campuses won Beacon Awards for their excellence in fostering wellness and promoting active aging. Moorings Park Grande Lake’s Pinnacle Award achievement only reinforces the Moorings Park Communities mission of providing Simply the Best® services for successful aging.
A Culture of Longevity in Southwest Florida
According to the ICAA® State of the Wellness Industry report, “61% of survey respondents believe that their community will be based in a wellness lifestyle, with options for care, by 2025.” This is because a culture built around wellness is known to foster longevity. National Geographic researchers determined that the average person’s lifespan is heavily influenced by the environment and observed that areas around the world with high longevity and vitality all had major commonalities that related back to the lifestyle and habits that were being supported by their communities.
These areas are called Blue Zones, and in 2015, Southwest Florida became one of seven areas in the United States to adopt Blue Zone Project® principles. This means that organizations in the area, including Moorings Park Communities, made a commitment to drive physical, mental, social, and professional well-being by transforming the environment. However, there’s no need to wait until 2025 to benefit from a wellness lifestyle in Southwest Florida, because Moorings Park Communities has been providing this way of life to residents for over 40 years.
“Since its inception, Moorings Park Communities was designed around the concept that its residents would live longer, happier, and healthier lives, which perfectly emulates the concept behind the Blue Zones Project®,” says Dan Lavender, CEO and President of Moorings Park Communities. “Our goal is to change how the world ages.”
With this in mind, it’s clear why Moorings Park Grande Lake was recognized by the ICAA® for being an outstanding example of wellness excellence.
The Pinnacle of Senior Living Communities in North America
Upon opening in April of 2020, Moorings Park Grande Lake was immediately embraced by Southwest Florida, not only for its luxurious location, residences, and amenities, but for its commitment to providing unparalleled personalized healthcare services and programs to its residents. Everyone who calls Moorings Park Grande Lake home is assessed by the wellness team upon arrival. This serves as the foundation of a custom wellness roadmap, which is based on strengths, preferences, and goals and ensures that every resident begins their wellness journey with absolute confidence.
“Moorings Park Grande Lake provides wellness services for all levels of care and throughout significant life transitions,” says Director of Wellness Brett Swanson. “Using a person-centric approach helps us make more informed recommendations and decisions, so that everyone has something that engages them.”
To develop a fully holistic program for each resident, Moorings Park Grande Lake concierge physicians and wellness team members work together to coordinate fitness and wellness plans. Roadmap check-ins are conducted on a quarterly basis to promote success through accountability and adaptability, and resident views are used to inform decisions and ensure needs are met at every level.
As best-selling author Dr. Peter Attia states in his book Outlive, “Exercise is by far the most potent longevity ‘drug.’ No other intervention does nearly as much to prolong our lifespan and preserve our cognitive and physical function.”
Moorings Park Vice President and successful aging expert Tom Mann agrees. “You can’t overstate the importance of exercise and socialization. These are two key ingredients that are baked into the Moorings Park Communities’ lifestyle,” says Mann.
Redefining the Meaning of Aging
At Moorings Park Communities, wellness encompasses more than just physical fitness, an aspect of Moorings Park Grande Lake that contributed to it being honored with the prestigious Pinnacle Award. The communities’ wellness culture centers on seven dimensions of wellness as the foundation for successful aging: physical, social, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, vocational, and environmental. These dimensions tie into the Blue Zone Power 9®, which emphasize that moving your body, maintaining the right outlook, eating wisely, and connecting all contribute to a long, healthy life.
Each of these dimensions can be tapped into at the distinguished Center for Healthy Living®, which lies at the heart of the 55-acre lakefront campus. Here, residents can conveniently access the fitness center, wellness programs, golf simulator, spa services, art studio, outpatient rehabilitative services, and cognitive zone, as well as the theatre which hosts regular educational and informative seminars. With a full calendar that offers everything from resident-led groups and games to cocktail hours and local outings, residents at Moorings Park Grande Lake can thrive across every dimension of wellness.
“We want to redefine the meaning of aging,” says Swanson. “By embodying compassion, positivity, and accountability, we empower our residents to live an active lifestyle that will enrich their quality of life and help them age successfully.”
Aging successfully is the mission that Moorings Park Communities was built on. Everything that is offered at Moorings Park Grande Lake fully emphasizes and supports this way of life, with leaders relying on innovation and creativity as they look to the future of wellness opportunities and experiences.
“As communities across the country step up their games, winning a Beacon and Pinnacle Award, or maintaining a previous award ranking, has become both a greater challenge and significant achievement,” says Milner.
“We are constantly focused on finding new ways to improve offerings to enhance the seven dimensions of wellness that foster successful aging,” says Dan Lavender. “We’re striving to be the Tesla of senior living.”
