There’s a particular kind of Chicagoan who isn’t going anywhere. They’ve got a standing subscription to the symphony, a favorite table at a restaurant they can walk to, and absolutely no interest in leaving downtown. If that sounds like you, here’s the thing worth knowing: Leaving downtown was never the goal.
Just ask Nancy Krippel.
Before she moved to The Clare, Nancy lived a few blocks away, right across Michigan Avenue on E. Pearson Street. Before that, Lincoln Park. Before that, a life in Georgia she traded for a car-free, walkable existence in one of the only American cities that could offer it. She has spent years building the kind of downtown life plenty of people spend a lifetime chasing. The Art Institute of Chicago, the symphony, the opera, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and a weekly bridge game are all staples of her day-to-day life.
So, when it came time to think about her next move, giving up her culturally connected life wasn’t an option.
She never had to.
“When I came over and realized that I could live the exact same life I lived in my condominium here at The Clare, but with incredible services … it was just such an attractive location for me,” Nancy said.
That’s the part longtime downtown residents tend to get wrong – the assumption that moving from their current building means trading one life for a smaller one. Nancy’s experience says otherwise.
“I did all these things when I lived outside The Clare. So the point for me was that I could bring my life with me. I didn’t have to give up anything to move to The Clare.”
A Change of Mindset
Nancy is candid that the decision wasn’t really about downsizing her lifestyle. It was about downsizing everything that got in the way of it.
After living through a broken leg from a fall, an ex-husband’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and watching a friend decline suddenly and seeing a family scramble to figure out what came next, “It occurred to me that I simply never wanted my children to have to say, ‘What are we going to
do with Mom?’ So Mom needs to figure out what to do, and The Clare is, for me, the best place to age, because I never have to move again.”
The appeal of The Clare has very little to do with what residents are giving up and everything to do with what quietly disappears. No HOA board. No maintenance calls. Nothing standing between her and a symphony ticket except her own schedule – which, if anything, has gotten busier.
The Same Skyline, a Different Kind of Neighbor
Ask Nancy what surprised her most, and it isn’t the dining or the location. It’s the community.
“I think I expected it to be a little bit more like living in a condominium than it is. It has all the good qualities of the condominium, and then you add on this community that really cares about its neighbors.”
In her old building, she might see a neighbor once a month, in passing. At The Clare, she’s having dinner with a different resident most nights of the week. She’s in a book club. She attends lectures. Recently, a Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist’s family performed in the building, and a film critic from Loyola University Chicago stops by once a month to talk with residents, one of her favorite things.
“You live in a condo, and you may see your neighbors once a month, if you happen to get on the elevator at the same time. But here, there is a real community.”
Yes, There’s Still a Kitchen
Every resident, it seems, arrives with the same reflexive question from friends back in their old building: Wait, so you don’t even have a kitchen?
“I have to laugh. A woman who just moved here came fully prepared to cook for herself. I ran into her and asked how it was going, and she said, ‘The food is really good. I don’t think I’m ever going to cook.’ ”
Nancy has her own version of that story. She has a full kitchen in her apartment, which she rarely uses, by choice. One of her friends asked her, “ ’I know they have food, but what do you do for a refrigerator?’ I laughed and said, ‘You know I have a full kitchen, right?’ ”
While she’s grateful her kitchen gets little use, what she did use was the ability to renovate the space into something built for the life she actually wanted, including room for a bridge table and four chairs, because a standing weekly game was nonnegotiable.
“I love it,” she said. “I’ve got a balcony, and I sit out there and read when I want to.”
Service Without the Catch
Nancy is quick to point out that she didn’t expect the daily level of support she’s received.
“Everybody here, from the executive director … she walks around and asks, ‘Can I get you anything? Do you need anything?’ And I’m like, ‘You’re the executive director. Don’t wait on me.’ But everybody is like that.”
“From Monica Rusboldt, the Executive Director, to the very nice man who comes in and deep cleans your apartment. He’s so happy in his work. So it’s just … the service is just amazing.”
And underneath the daily rhythm of dinners and bridge games and lectures sits something she rarely thinks about by design: full access to The Terraces at The Clare, our on-site continuum of care, if and when she ever needs it.
Peace of Mind Built Into the Building
For Nancy, the case for The Clare was never really about needing care now. It was about never having to think about arranging it later – for herself, or for her family.
“I don’t ever want to move again. I don’t want my kids to have to think about moving me. I can go from here to assisted living, or to memory care, or to skilled nursing. I love the security of that.”
That full continuum of care, through The Terraces at The Clare, is the kind of thing Nancy describes as easy to forget about, in the best way. A year in, she hasn’t needed to use any of it.
“At this point, it has no meaning for me, thankfully. But it is one of the reasons I don’t ever want to move again.”
What she has noticed is how much thought goes into keeping residents safe day to day, without it ever feeling clinical or intrusive. She remembers asking, half joking, what would happen if she fell in the middle of her own kitchen.
“It turns out that if you don’t open your front door by 11 o’clock, they send security up to find you. And I was like, ‘Well, all right, that’s what happens.’ They’ve sort of thought of all of these ways to keep us safe as we continue to age.”
There are pull cords in every bathroom. There’s a fitness center and a full class schedule, including a balance class that Nancy calls one of the most genuinely useful things she does each week.
“As we age, our balance gets shakier and shakier. So, they really sort of think about the residents they have and make this place work for us. And it’s lovely.”
It’s a theme that runs through everything Nancy describes: The safety net is real, and fully staffed with EMTs and on-site wellness support around the clock. But it stays in the background until the day it doesn’t have to. Until then, it’s just one more thing she no longer has to manage herself.
Her Advice to the Neighbor She Used to Be
Nancy has become, in her own words, something of a town crier for The Clare. She regularly hosts old friends for dinner and gives them the tour. Her advice to the downtown Chicagoans still on the fence is simple.
“Don’t wait. The advantages of living in a place like this are manifold and manifest.”
For residents like Nancy, The Clare was never a departure from the life she’d built downtown. It was the same city, the same symphony, the same Michigan Avenue view, the same fierce independence, with everything exhausting quietly removed, and a community she didn’t know she was missing added in its place.