Las Vegas senior building smart home to make life easier, ecofriendly

Teri Lyn Vander Heiden wants a home that will care for her in her remaining years.

She'll have none of this talk of "old folks home."

That's why the 75-year-old is building herself what she calls a "senior smart home," equipped with green reusable technologies that cater to her needs.

Solar power, recyclable water, sliding doors, wheelchair accessibility, automatic lights, cement countertops, under-cabinet refrigerators and a drawer-type dishwasher are only a handful of ideas Vander Heiden said she wants to incorporate in the project.

"I see seniors who go into senior homes and become zombies," Vander Heiden said. "Their families won't take them in, and I can't put that on any of my family. They're all over the country, and I see them through Facebook. They have their own lives, and there's no way I'm going to start traveling all over the place to live when I have my own identity right now."

In 2003, Vander Heiden was injured in a car accident in Colorado that killed her husband. She was forced to close her real estate office and end her 50-year career to cope with her injuries. She came back to the five-bedroom home they shared for 25 years.

It was too big. Too empty.

The Las Vegas resident tried to sell the home, remodeling a little at a time. But the recession hit and the home lost half of its $450,000 value. She decided to dip into her savings -- she said she's made good investments and had no debt -- and build a smaller home across the street.

She said she's hopeful that buyers or renters will come along soon to take her old home off her hands, so she can recoup finances to pay off the debt.

It's a culmination of three years of dreams, Vander Heiden said.

"I believe with all my heart and soul that the good Lord is saying, 'You're coming to me when you finish this project,' " she said. "This home is going to help a lot of people."

The goal is to have the new one-bedroom, two-bathroom 2,300-square-foot home become a prototype for smart technology housing, so college students, builders and homebuyers can learn more about the green materials that can make life easier and ecofriendly, Vander Heiden added.

She admits it's a learning process. Permits. Pricing. The technology itself. Stovetops that won't burn hands. Cement floors that are easy to clean.

"Why aren't seniors being introduced to this?" she said. "These are things that should be in all senior homes and senior facilities."

This summer, Vander Heiden visited a smart pilot home in McKeesport, Pa., to see the technology for herself. With keyless door entry, lights that detected her every movement and special drawers that alerted her when she didn't take her pills as prescribed, Vander Heiden was sold on the idea.

She declined to comment about how much the new home will cost. To cope with the costs, Vander Heiden is searching for grant money geared toward seniors, green technology and the environment. She'll get some rebates, but the project is costly.

However, her general contractor Robert Kissell of UC Construction in Boulder City said a similar project could run $300,000 to $500,000.

Framing the home will be the most expensive part of the project, he added.

"The technology is very affordable at less than $10,000," Kissell said. "We're taking certain features like automatic doors and faucets that detect hands in a residential home. We're adapting commercial things in a residential property. The only reason more people don't do this is because they don't know about it."

Contact Kristi Jourdan at kjourdan @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.