New opening
The Applewood: HC-One enjoys the fruits of its success
The Care Home Environment editor Matt Seex visited The Applewood in Milton Keynes to meet home manager Ana-Maria Cormos, interior designer Dessy Spencer, and outgoing interior design manager Sarah Coley, to discuss and explore HC-One’s latest, which takes care home interior design to the next level
Around ninety minutes’ drive from London in one direction and Birmingham in the other, the city of Milton Keynes was founded by new town designation order in 1967, taking its name from the historic village which now forms a small part of Milton Keynes’ overall sprawl. Intended by the government of the day as the crown jewel in a new generation of new towns designed to relieve housing congestion in London, Milton Keynes is the only city in Buckinghamshire and is home to nearly 290,000 people. As such – as with any sizeable urban area in the UK – the city has a significant and growing demand for care home places. Located in the Giffard Park area, The
Applewood is HC-One’s second Milton Keynes care home and, at 78-bedrooms, twice the size of the provider’s existing Highclere Care Home a few minutes down the road. Construction of The Applewood was scheduled to finish in September 2024; in the event, a short delay caused by persistent wet weather and some labour resourcing issues saw completion take place in December. Opened on 8 March, The Care Home
Environment visited The Applewood in early April, when the home already had around half a dozen residents. With fees starting at £1,500, home manager Ana-Maria Cormos tells me that The Applewood is already generating plenty of interest. “It’s going really well,” she says. “We’ve had lots of inquiries and a very good response from the community.” HC-One is positioning The Applewood as a ‘lifestyle home’, and Ana-Maria explains that she would like to see older people making a positive choice to move into The Applewood rather than having that choice made for them further down the line. This way, older people can enjoy the
July 2025
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com
HC-One is positioning The Applewood as a ‘lifestyle home’
many benefits such a setting can offer – particularly the opportunity to feel part of a community and establish new friendships after the isolation of the pandemic years. “Elderly people have really been affected by that long period where they were isolated and were not allowed to come out of their home,” she tells me. “They lost contact with friends, with family sometimes … So this kind of [care] home will give them that social part of life. And what we try to do is to change this mentality of ‘I’m coming into a care home – my life will finish’.” Instead, Ana-Maria says, moving into a lifestyle home such as The Applewood should be seen as a chance to start again, to become involved in the local community while still having the support you need. Indeed, when it came to designing The
Applewood, HC-One looked to that local community and local environment for inspiration.
Interior designer Dessy Spencer
explains: “The design was inspired by the county, because it’s very rich with historic buildings. It’s a new city, but it’s sitting in this historic area where there’s a lot of influence from all around … We hope that when people walk in, there’s a genuine sense of ‘this is something familiar, something that I can reconnect to’.”
Apples and sustainability The Applewood was built on the site of a former private bungalow. One of the planning stipulations was that HC-One retain the orchard and wildflower garden that existed on the site, and from which The Applewood takes its name. With all of The Applewood’s catering being in-house, the kitchen team will be using fresh fruit from the orchard – pears, plums, and cherries, as well as the apples – to prepare some mouthwatering desserts, and Ana-Maria
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