Soon a second Casa Barbara, the senior residence designed by the Trigano

"For the locations, we said we had to choose holiday destinations, so that family visits would be a time of celebration," says the man who, in the 1990s, managed the Club Mediterranée co-founded by his father, Gilbert.

The concept was announced at the end of 2021 in partnership with the retirement home group Korian (now Clariane) with the ambition of "shaking up the codes of senior housing by creating new kinds of living spaces."

But in the meantime, the retirement home sector, marred by various scandals, faced economic difficulties that led Clariane to sell its senior residence branch and Trigano to seek new partners.

With the Atream investment fund (which notably took over the Pierre et Vacances group) and the CARAC veterans' pension fund, Serge Trigano opened the first Casa Barbara in Nice in mid-2023.

He plans to open around fifteen similar establishments.

In Nice, "it's off to a good start, with an occupancy rate of 50%," which is within the target range for this type of product, according to him.

The hundred apartments, from one-room to three-room, are rented for between 1 and 3 euros per month with different levels of services.

"We don't want to position it as something for old people, the fun side is important," he told AFP. "It's part of our brand image, we have parties, we dance."

"For the moment we are focusing on long stays and we are in the process of requesting authorizations to also offer short stays" and thus mix travelers and senior residents, he says.

"What interested us was aging well, and for us, that rests on three pillars: good, healthy food, and that's why we asked chef Pierre Gagnaire to create the menu, the notion of community with this idea of ​​breaking the loneliness of the elderly and finally maintaining intellectual and sporting activities," lists the manager, who is himself approaching 79.

"The idea is to create a community that would move from one residence to another," spending six months in Nice, then six months in Morocco or Tunisia, where Serge Trigano would like to develop the concept as a franchise.

"We're setting ourselves apart from the world of medical homes, but we're also considering integrating remote medical tools," he explains.

According to a study published this week by Xerfi, the number of senior service residences in France has more than doubled in seven years to exceed 1.200 establishments, but is expected to slow down, particularly with the disappearance of certain tax exemption schemes such as Pinel.