Avery Heights - CT - Hartford

Avery Heights' mission is to provide a full range of residential living and health care services for older adults by maintaining and supporting an individual's optimal independence and life wishes in a safe, dignified atmosphere conducive to quality retirement.

Description:
Since 1957, forward thinking and intuitive management have placed Avery Heights well ahead in the care of older adults. From a concept of independent housing and supportive services, we have developed a complete continuum of care that includes independent living and assistance in living , short-term care , inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation , intermediate and skilled nursing care, adult day health care and home health care services - all designed to support every individual at the highest level of independence possible.

History:
Avery Heights, a retirement community with many levels of health care and lifestyle options, is built on 43 acres of land that was once an apple orchard on a ridge known as Cedar Mountain. Founded in 1957, Avery Heights is also built on a vision of independence for older adults, one that was well ahead of its time in mid-20th century Connecticut.

Growing older in America never has enjoyed much popularity or favorable press. After all, we are a culture that celebrates its youth. Until the 1930s, America's picture of a woman age 60 was the shawl-draped figure of Whistler's mother seated in a rocking chair on her son's front porch.

But in the mid-1950s, a group of Hartford insurance executives and church leaders with a vision formulated an idea to create independent housing for older adults with supportive services, at a time when other well-intentioned health care professionals built institutions filled with beds for the elderly.

With that premise of independence, Avery Heights has enjoyed accelerated growth in health care and life-style options most needed to give older adults autonomy and wellness in life's final decades.

Initially, Avery Heights built cottages along the ridge known as Cedar Mountain, overlooking Hartford. An existing convalescent hospital, bought with the land, became a residential care facility called Avery House, with meals and nursing care available.

Over the next three decades, the governing board of Avery Heights, officially Church Homes, Inc., withdrew from its original Congregational Church affiliation, but not from its vision. Avery Heights continued to add cottages, medical services and more complete levels of nursing care, guided by a formal mission to support every individual at the highest level of independence possible.

Today, a new, sharper vision of independence and healthy aging has taken shape as the understanding of the role of exercise, physical fitness and preventive medicine takes hold in all services, across the continuum of care at Avery.

In some ways, not much has changed in more than 45 years. Avery Heights, a retirement community located on land that was once an apple orchard, remains a vision, well ahead of its time.

Contact person: Mary McClintock, Director Of Development, (phone), (email)
Office fax number: (860) 293-2758

Address:

705 New Britain Avenue Hartford, CT 06105 (See a map)

Directions:

Driving West on I-84 Take Exit 44, marked Prospect Avenue. At the end of the exit, turn right onto Kane Street to Prospect. Turn right on Prospect and continue straight to first light. Merge right onto New Park Avenue. Continue. . . (more) For maps or information, please see http://www.cttransit.com/