Nestled against the Las Trampas wilderness in its own small-but-beautiful valley, Rossmoor has never been the most obvious senior community to nearly 10,000 residents.

It’s not even clear it’s been part of the much bigger city of Walnut Creek since it opened in 1964.

But it’s changed the lives of countless people looking for community independence, safety and active lifestyles during their later years.

Why do people join the Rossmoor community? And why do so many seem so pleasantly surprised once they get there?

 

Dan McGrath has been a Rossmoor resident since 2014, coming with his wife from Oregon to be closer to his daughter and grandchildren, who live in Walnut Creek.

He said he had a beautiful home and property in Oregon, the worth of which covered about 50% of something similar in the Bay Area. His daughter needed them closer, and he said Rossmoor was affordable. He said Rossmoor’s community makes it OK to age.

“We have compassion for each other as we grow older,” McGrath said. “It’s OK to grow old here, and there’s a lot of really great people here, who bring talent and experience to bear.”

McGrath said he’s connected with people who aren’t concerned with nearing the end of life as much as they are the collective future, which he called “super fun.”

“Whatever we do, it will be for the future,” McGrath said. “If we plant a tree in our 70s or 80s, it’s a legacy. We do it for the future.”

 

Pamela Liang came to Rossmore from Fremont almost five years ago. She wanted to come sooner when she found out about it but wasn’t old enough.

“We actually discovered Rossmoor when my daughter came to the Event Center for a performance,” Liang said. “She was in a youth symphony orchestra – she’s a violinist. She was still in high school.”

Liang and her husband were impressed by the natural beauty surrounding the community. Then they started talking to people before the performance.

“We said, ‘Wow, this is such a nice place.’ The people sitting next to us said, ‘Oh, you must be proud parents.’ We said, ‘Yes, you must be lucky residents.’”

They heard about prices and the Fitness Center and clubs and other facilities, and were unexpectedly sold before the evening ended.

“So, we called the Rossmoor Reality office and they showed us around, but at that time we were too young. They said we’re not ready – we weren’t 55 years old (the minimum age for residency). We said, ‘OK, when we retire, we will move.’ That was 2013. We moved here in 2021, during the pandemic.”

With companies allowing employees to work from home, they decided they no longer needed to live near their jobs. So they came to Rossmoor and retired.

“Why not enjoy life?” said Liang, who’s the president of the Rossmoor Ceramics Club. “I got involved with a lot of clubs. I was so happy. Right after I retired, I got into ceramics. I was lucky.”

 

 

Carol Weed lived in Lafayette, was recently widowed, and was following what she called standard advice of not making any major changes the first year of being on her own.

She took a class in which a fellow member said she lived in Rossmoor. Believing it was just a place for “old people,” she said she felt sorry for the woman.

But then she heard the director of the Sierra Club was coming to speak at Rossmoor. Which appealed to her activist side.

She came to the event as a guest and met members of the Democratic and environmental communities.

“I thought, ‘Maybe I should find out a little more about it, since I’m an environmentalist.’ Then when I was here, I realized the real reason I like it is because of interesting people, smart people, active people and dedicated activists, so I like that.”

Weed moved in 2013, partially because she’s a gardener, and even the nearby golf course felt like a garden to her. Before she knew it, she was running voter-registration drives for the Democrats of Rossmoor.

“Ever since then, I took over voter registration, and I’ve trained these people to register voters and we go out in the county and farmers’ markets and so forth, to register people.”

“My final reason to come here is I found I was needed and I could do environmental things,” Weed said. “I could hang out, and I had a big garden I just have to take care of.”

 

 

Marsha McLean came to Rossmoor from Marin nearly 11 years ago, because the price was reasonable and it had everything she needed.

“And we realized you can be alone, but you never have to be lonely,” McLean said. “You have this sense of community, which I think is really important.”

She said she never wanted to move here because it was known for “old people.”

McLean said her former husband didn’t initially want to move to Rossmoor, because he thought it was where people go to die.

“Well, we die,” McLean said. “And I couldn’t think of a better place to die. No, I’m serious. You have so much opportunity – you can do what you want. If there’s something you’d like to do and they don’t have a club for it, you can make a club.

“We truly are blessed to live here.” McLean said she still misses Marin because she misses the beach. “But there’s no other place like this, which has everything we need,” she said.

 

 

Ralph Atkins came to Rossmoor in 1999 after experiencing a house fire in Orinda. He had a friend who lived in Rossmoor who suggested Atkins move there.

“I was just 55; I just made it in,” he said.

Atkins still worked as a lawyer and a part-time actor.

“I was just going to come here temporarily,” he said, smiling. “Now you’re going to drag me out by my boots.”

Atkins said it’s affordable and has everything he needs.

“It has everything here. It’s beautifully located, and downtown is five minutes away,” Atkins said. “They have every restaurant in the world there. Or if I want to go to Alamo, I go to Alamo. Or I go to Lafayette.”

 

 

Elliot Barenbaus lived in a three-story Victorian house in San Francisco when his wife began experiencing health problems that made living there problematic.

They looked at various places to move around the Bay Area, but Rossmoor’s proximity to BART won over Barenbaus, so he could get back and forth to San Francisco, where he rents out his house.

“In Rossmoor, you just find these commonalities that really throw you for a loop,” Barenbaus said. “Because of all the clubs, because of location. You have a lot of people who live here because their grandchildren are (nearby).”

“For my wife, the plus is definitely the Ceramic Studio because my wife was an art teacher, and just having all these studios in like living on a college campus it’s like living in a small little art campus. Where else are you going to find that in a 55-and-older community?”

Barenbaus had always lived in cities, going back to being a young man in Philadelphia. He was initially skeptical about the suburbs but acknowledged it’s now the place for them.

“San Francisco’s becoming a harder city for older people; it’s a city for the young, with a lot of bike lanes, and if you need a car to go into the city it becomes a really impossible city to park,” Barenbaus said.

His opinion has changed since he heard a friend call Rossmoor “God’s waiting room.”

“This is a place where you really want to take advantage of everything and there’s the gym, there’s the clubs, whether it’s pickleball or whatever. You know that’s here,” Barenbaus said.

 

 

Tina Lee came to Rossmoor with her partner 14 years ago from Oakland, where crime was increasing in her neighborhood. Her partner retired and wanted to check out Rossmoor.

“He’s a golfer and a tennis player, so a lot of things fit, and I like to do the art stuff and it’s safe,” Lee said. “You can walk any time in the morning and late at night, and it is kind of quiet, but that’s OK.”

Lee said if it gets too quiet, “you can always go someplace if you want to make noise,” she said, laughing.

She said she joined clubs, which “is really kind of a plus, because other places wouldn’t have it, you’d be joining places outside, it’s just convenient that it’s here. And you meet a lot of people from all over.”

Lee said she met an Olympic medalist and a friend whose mom was a “Rosie the riveter” during World War II.

“Just a lot of interesting folks, so it’s not boring,” she said.

Lee said growing up in the Bay Area gave her a preconception of Rossmoor.

“You think it’s just old people you know, and as you get older you get closer to that, and it doesn’t seem that old.”

She said getting to know people in the community makes her feel neighbors are looking out for her.

Lee said she recently saw a woman nearly get hit by a car. She drove back to check but couldn’t find her. She happened to run into the pedestrian the next day and ended up going back to her home, and discovered the woman was a European immigrant who was forced to escape her country on foot.

“It’s that kind of thing, where you meet these people and they tell you these extraordinary life stories,” Lee said.

 

 

Mary Taylor left the Bay Area to spend 12 years in Atlanta, then wanted to come back to be closer to her children and grandchildren. A friend suggested Rossmoor, which she initially dismissed.

“Then I came here and I fell in love with it,” Taylor said. “The beauty – it’s like living in a forest or a park.”

She gave very high marks to Rossmoor’s amenities, events, the movies, the Library and the Fitness Center. Taylor is very involved in clubs and causes, and said Rossmoor keeps her busy.

“There’s over 200 clubs here,” Taylor said. “We get political candidates. I’m active in a lot of organizations that kind of focus on social racial justice. I’ve made a lot of friends.”

After living in Rossmoor for a decade, she said the residents are like family.

“Everybody knows each other and looks out for everyone,” Taylor said. “It’s just amazing.”