Leisure World May Retire Its Name, Image

The folks at Leisure World have heard it all -- Seizure World, Geezer World, God’s Waiting Room. So forgive them if the jokes are wearing a little thin.

Because of the tasteless quips, and because the Laguna Woods retirement community may soon have to pay to use the trademark, some residents are ready to ditch the name.

There’s nothing too leisurely, they say, about a place where senior citizens wait for a turn on treadmills and are pining for more Pilates classes.

“Leisure World,” branded more than 40 years ago as a comfortable place where people could live out their sunset years, now sounds too sedentary for a generation more active than ever.

“The connotation is that we’re old doddering people in walkers and wheelchairs, and that we’re basically warehousing bodies waiting for the grim reaper,” said 73-year-old Marty Rhodes, chairman of the name change committee.

Not true at all, he said. “Come here, and within weeks, your life turns around. You are into a completely new, second childhood.”

The name change has been bandied about previously, reflecting increasingly active senior lifestyles. The proposal has gained traction this time because the owner of the Leisure World trademark wants the community to pay as much as $18,000 annually to use it on its cable television station and website. A committee is studying the pros, cons and costs of dropping the name, and will soon seek comment from residents.

The issue is largely about perception. For residents, Leisure World provides the trappings of an active lifestyle. If only the name sounded more active.

“Leisure,” along with “retired,” are no longer in vogue. Feeling old is out.

AARP -- which tellingly dropped the word “retired” from its name and is now known only by what had been its acronym -- has redesigned its magazine, once the place of Metamucil ads, to include stories announcing that 60 is the new 30. Its website offers advice for creating spicy personal ads, and a message board is devoted to “dating horror stories.”

In a national survey, the Boomer Project, a market research company found that only 2% of older adults think “senior citizen” is an appropriate term to describe them, said Matt Thornhill, the project’s president.

Even more noteworthy, Thornhill said, is that the way older people expect to live out their lives is also changing. The traditional view held that as people aged, their quality of life diminished. But aging boomers are no longer satisfied with the occasional round of golf and one last Alaskan cruise.

“Boomers aren’t going to age that way,” Thornhill said. “They’re going to reinvent themselves, keep active, keep going. This thought of retiring and living the life of leisure for 30 years, is just a foreign concept to boomers.... They are prolonging what it means to get old.”

During a recent poll, for example, Thornhill asked a 50-year-old woman, “At what age are you over the hill?” Her response: “When I die.”

Not that leisure is bad. At Leisure World, home to more than 230 clubs and organizations, canasta, chess and needlework remain popular. But there’s also hiking, synchronized swimming and, for the youngsters, the Rock ‘n’ Rollers, a group popular for dance and music events such as Beatles nights.

Rhodes, a retired salesman, keeps track of his busy life with a color-coded pocket calendar. Red ink for meetings and Leisure World business; black ink for social activities.

There’s a lot to remember. His wife, Roz, sits on two boards, volunteers for the city, works out at the Leisure World gym, plays mahjongg and cards. He serves on the community’s board of directors, chairs three committees, and plays golf and paddle tennis.

The couple belong to 11 clubs and four organizations. They’re taking riding lessons at the community’s equestrian center in preparation for their vacation in Costa Rica, and “tonight I’ve got square dancing,” Rhodes said.

Leisure World has the requisite 18-hole golf course and, to accommodate demand, has added more tennis courts and gyms.

On any given day, gym rats must put their names on a waiting list for a spin on the elliptical trainers and exercise bikes. Early birds gather down the street to walk the mall before the stores open. And because many residents in the 55-and-over community still punch a clock, some meet after work on Fridays for TGIF cocktails.

Such pastimes reflect how Leisure World has adjusted to its increasingly active residents, who are working longer and playing harder.

The community was created in 1964, a premiere property in a chain of eight retirement communities developed by Ross Cortese, who wanted to capitalize on affluent retirees who sought an upscale lifestyle in age-restricted neighborhoods. Some of the other communities have retained the Leisure World title; others are known by more ambiguous names, such as Wynmoor Village in Florida. Leisure World in Seal Beach is not considering a name change.

Leisure World was built out in 1986 with 18,000 residents, and in 1999 residents voted to become a city -- Laguna Woods. With an average age of 78, its residents were the oldest of any city in California.

But don’t confuse old with slow.

Margaret Conroy, 69, is more active now than she was before moving to Leisure World two years ago. She hits the gym three or four times a week. Thirty minutes on the treadmill, 20 minutes on the elliptical trainer, a few bench presses, a little work with the free weights.

“I have a 90-year-old neighbor and she doesn’t walk anymore, she runs,” Conroy said. “There’s a 95-year-old opposite me. They’re all active.... It’s really inspiring.”

Maybe that’s why, Rhodes said, residents are more likely to say they live in Laguna Woods than Leisure World, although some cling to the brand name because of its largely positive reputation, and because they resist change.

The Leisure World name is owned by Heidi Cortese, the developer’s daughter. A long-standing agreement allows the community to use the name on such things as buses, stationery and brochures. But when the community profits -- through website or cable television advertising -- it will have to pay an annual license fee of up to $18,000 and a percentage of the revenue, said Janet Price, Leisure World’s finance and administration director.

The words “Leisure World” appear nowhere on the community’s website.

“It’s just silly to have a whole website devoted to Leisure World when you can’t use the name Leisure World on it,” Price said.

With millions in the annual budget for such things as recreation, maintenance and security, the gated community can afford to pay Cortese. It can also afford the one-time cost of a name change, which Price estimated at $50,000.

But now, Price said, it’s become a matter of principal.

The name change committee still has a lot of work to do. Members haven’t even begun soliciting alternative names.

“I think people are more excited [for a name change] and, of course, there’s the monetary thing,” said committee member Isabel Muennichow, 71. “When you add the two things together, it just might happen.”