No Place Like Their Home

Arlington Seniors Celebrate Life at the Culpepper Garden Complex

They hailed from around the globe and boasted lives just as disparate: The Rockette, an actor, war veterans, nurses, teachers, artists and homemakers among them.

Short of two world wars and the Great Depression, they had little in common. What they shared was circumstance.

Unable to keep up with the rising cost of living, they moved, one by one, to Culpepper Garden, a home for low-income seniors in Arlington.

It wasn't the life any of them envisioned when they were younger, when planning for retirement seemed so far away. Some had lost spouses and needed support. Others simply couldn't make the rent each month as housing prices began to skyrocket in booming Arlington.

So they settled at Culpepper Garden, the county's first nonprofit retirement home, which opened in 1975 on North Pershing Drive to provide services to help seniors stay in the county as they aged.

In the years that followed, the facility grew and changed, incorporating federal housing subsidies, culminating in 2000 with the addition of an assisted-living wing. While assisted living was hardly a new concept at the time, Culpepper Garden's facility was hailed as the first in the country to be operated for low-income seniors in housing subsidized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Officials overseeing the facility plan to release a book this month celebrating the diversity among the residents who have lived and continue to live in a facility they say is truly groundbreaking.

"It is still unique," said Caroline Eddins, fund development coordinator for Culpepper Garden.

Over the years, the facility has been recognized nationally for providing innovative, broad-service programs to its more than 350 residents, many of whom say they don't know how they would cope without the emotional and financial support they get at Culpepper Garden.

"Most of us didn't plan ahead," said Jim Barrett, 74. "I didn't think I'd live long enough to ever worry about it." Barrett was paying $1,500 a month to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Arlington before moving to Culpepper Garden five years ago. He now pays $750 a month for rent and utilities, and another $200 a month for food.

Barrett, a retired actor and director, is one of 29 residents, past and present, included in the newly published book "Culpepper Garden: Community Treasure."

Proceeds from sales of the $25 book will go to the Arlington Retirement Housing Corp., the corporate parent of Culpepper Garden, to support residents' needs. Initially, the book will be made available to friends and relatives of the center's residents; 10,000 copies were printed.