A senior living project just south of San Francisco transformed a former industrial site into a multigenerational hub for socialization and luxury-focused aging.
The project, Ellore Senior Living, in Santa Clara, California, comprises 176 units in a tower design spanning 20 floors and 240,000 square feet. The community’s blend of unique architecture and high-end interior design is meant “to fit the Silicon Valley lifestyle,” the project planners with Related California have said.
Inside the community, amenities such as a wellness center with a concierge physician’s office and physical therapy suite help create a feeling that residents are well taken care of. Open spaces foster daily interaction among residents and support healthy aging under the day-to-day management of operator Oakmont Senior Living.
The tower is one of two dwellings on campus. Ellore’s “sister” is The Clara, a multifamily building that represents a “bold new vision for high-rise living and hospitality.” The towers complete a master plan site design that includes an Amtrak station and proximity to Levi’s Stadium, the current home of the San Francisco 49ers.
These and other features helped Ellore Senior Living win the top prize in the assisted living category of the 2025 Senior Housing News Architecture and Design Awards.
The concept
Project planners with Related California first began envisioning Ellore Senior Living in the late 2010s.
Related California had worked on other projects, including in the luxury residential sector, and saw potential to use that knowledge to create a senior living community. So the company’s leaders began putting details together for the project in 2018 with an eye on meeting “a growing demand for luxury senior living,” according Simsik, senior vice president of development at Related California.
The company’s project planners wanted to create a senior housing community that embodied “dignity, autonomy, and connection.” With direction from the architects at Steinberg Hart, the project team eventually landed on a design that included verticality with an emphasis on wellness. Each unit has access to daylight, fresh air and “expansive” views of the surrounding community, as well as easy access to elevators and shared areas. Corner units also have access to balcony spaces.
On the tower’s third floor, designers focused on enhancing resident life while accommodating memory care studios and support spaces. To do this, the memory care program is arranged in a horseshoe shape around a garden, ensuring that “every unit enjoys ample daylight and a biophilic visual connection to nature.”
The layout is meant to foster “orientation, comfort and well-being for residents while maintaining privacy and safety.”
The community plan also included the creation of a public park to act as a venue where senior living residents and people living in the nearby apartments could interact, Asheshh Saheba, managing partner of Steinberg Hart and design principal for the project, told Senior Housing News.
“We wanted the park to be interactive for both communities, the senior living and the residential, and so it would be the piece that stitches things together between both,” he said.
Some of the community’s greatest strengths in operation were also challenges during development and construction. The project team had to plan around a nearby Amtrak and light rail station that necessitated working with with city officials. In some cases, they changed aspects of the community’s design, like extending a greenway around the site’s perimeter instead of cutting through it as originally planned.
“This opportunity of connecting to mass transit really allowed us to really create active zones along the two streets there to really amplify the activation of the greenway,” Saheba said.
The project planners sought to create a feeling of permanence and presence with the tower’s design. The tower’s base panels are wide, grounding it. They also used a precast concrete facade and window design to “market a point of orientation.” Architects designed the windows with glazing that gradually increases with every floor, “modulating unit types while expanding views as residents ascend the building,” the planners wrote. The wider glazing and tapered precast elements also create a sense of lightness in the project.
The construction
Builders with Related California Construction began construction on Ellore Senior Living in late 2022.
The project team ran into supply chain issues, which made it more difficult to procure materials. Sourcing glass in particular took longer than expected, Saheba said.
The project team was able to source precast concrete from a local manufacturer, which helped maintain the two-year project timeline.
“The construction team did a really good job of managing everything else around the edges,” Saheba said. “Everything else was pretty smooth.”
In the end, the $120 million project was on time and budget.
“Since we started the project from the planning stage, their contracting group was in the room with us, so there weren’t surprises,” he said. “When you have a client and contractor that are the same, and there’s questions that arise during construction, they can resolve it really quickly.”
The completion
Workers wrapped up construction on Ellore Senior Living earlier this year in April.
Today, the community stands as a testament to its planners’ forethought and focus on interaction. The community includes mixed-use amenities that cater to people of all walks of life, such as retail, a hair salon, and a bistro along with a yoga studio, gym, theater and physiotherapy pool and rooftop garden. Its interior designer was March and White Design.
The finished product, managed by Oakmont, “truly reflects the community we set out to create,” Simsik said.
“The architecture is sophisticated and the interiors are thoughtfully designed to support residents as they age with style and dignity,” Simsik said. “Whether a resident joins us for the vibrant independent or assisted living experience or for more specialized support in memory care, there is no compromise on design, quality or overall comfort.”
Judges noted the project’s interior design elements and amenities. Gracyn Robinson, interior designer at LWDA Design, described the project as “a perfect 10.”
“Stunning interior throughout the entire project,” Robinson wrote.
Ben Seager, principal at KTGY, noted every element of the project “evokes the feel of a 5-star resort.”
“By concentrating the massing into a taller, more slender tower, the design maximizes natural light throughout the building—especially in shared spaces,” he wrote.
Lease-up for the community is underway and “going well,” Simsik said, with Saheba estimating occupancy reaching around 40% as of November.
Related California is also using the project to shape its next senior living projects, perhaps the biggest sign of the project’s success.
“We hope to continue to build communities that provide an elevated lifestyle experience for residents,” Simsik said.
