Part I introduces actors from the older person landscape in England, giving voice to two consumers/ end-users of mainstream, or ‘generalneeds’ housing, and their respective lived experiences. They are outwith the target market for the retirement villa that is the subject of Part II of this book. In Chapter 3, Baby boomers, Matthew and Eileen represent the ‘active third-ager’ segment of the older person landscape, and as such may be considered too young or ‘not ready’ for a retirement villa. In Chapter 4, Vulnerable friend, Rose represents the fastest growing section of the UK population – the so-called ‘old-old’ or those aged 85 years and older. Rose has successfully aged in place, within a local authority supplied apartment, and is resisting a move to residential care. These are contrasting experiences of later life in England; Matthew and Eileen enjoying an active ‘third age’, having recently entered retirement, versus Rose who was journeying through the ‘fourth age’ and becoming ever-more dependent on others. A marked difference of course is their financial means, with Matthew and Eileen owning their homes (plural) and having capacity to shape them, while Rose lived within a rented apartment – one that arguably shaped her – and depended upon the local authority for maintenance and repairs. While not wholly representative of the older person landscape, these characters and their respective stories may be used as touchstones for thinking about its diversity, and a wide spectrum of needs and aspirations asked of our homes in later life.

To help situate the stories it is necessary to review literature around key terms used within gerontology to describe later life. American academic Bernice Neugarten first introduced the idea of ‘young-old’ (broadly those aged 55 to 75) and ‘old-old’ (those aged 75 and over) to acknowledge the breadth of circumstances presented by older persons in the 1980s, and to challenge the uncritical adoption of a set of stereotypes of ‘older persons as sick, poor, enfeebled, isolated’ (Neugarten, 1996). Then in 1989 British social historian Peter Laslett sought to recognise what he regarded a societal shift from three traditional life phases – childhood, adulthood and old age – towards a four-phase schema in which old age covers two life phases with distinct attributes.