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Prime Times Weekly feature of the Mail Tribune , Medford, Oregon Retirement close to home AP Photo By DAVE CARPENTER The Associated Press HUNTLEY, Ill . -- Sprawled along the prairie, the landmark retirement community seems an unlikely paradise. When winter winds whip across the bleak Midwestern landscape with little but cornfields to slow down their icy advance, it's enough to conjure up fantasies of Caribbean getaways. But Richard and Donna Porto and their fast-growing group of neighbors beg to differ. "This is like Eden," says Richard, 61, a retired data processor who moved with his wife into the new Sun City development here last year. Flush with retirement savings and stock profits from the roaring '90s, more Americans than ever are able to afford their version of paradise these days. But a funny thing about paradise -- it turned out to be right down the road. Forget Florida. Never mind Arizona. The American dream for many who are retired or on the verge of it is in places like Central Oregon or northern New Jersey or here in Huntley, a small town an hour northwest of Chicago. "We checked out places in the south," Porto said recently in their spacious single-story home on a cul-de-sac in Sun City Huntley. "But we knew we weren't going to leave the area. "Our children and grandchildren are here (in the Chicago area)," he said. "Our home is here." This is the first time giant builder Del Webb Corp., known for the huge success of its planned communities throughout the Sun Belt, has ventured north into what it calls "four-season" territory (translation: Brrr). While a Sun City with cross-country ski trails may seem odd, the early results are even better than Del Webb officials anticipated. Close to 2,000 people have moved into the year-old community and the company says houses are being occupied as fast as they are built. Target population within a decade: more than 10,000. With Del Webb's reputation for meticulous research, the new community is helping to spawn a slew of similar communities across the Frost Belt and beyond. Real estate consultant Tracy Cross of Schaumburg, Ill., cites plans by several builders in the Chicago area for such projects, and says the number of age-restricted communities has grown by 20 percent nationwide in the past two years. "You can see them popping up in almost every major metropolitan area in some form," Cross says. Trend-setting Del Webb is considering sites outside New York City (northern New Jersey), Philadelphia (Delaware) and Washington, among others, for its next Sun City developments. For years, market research has shown that the vast majority of Americans over age 60 -- from 85 percent to 95 percent depending on the survey -- would not be willing to move more than 100 miles away at retirement. But builders have focused on warm-weather sites for their retirement meccas, counting on the traditional lures of year-round sun, golf and either ocean or desert. Sporadic attempts at leisured-focused retirement communities in colder climates have sputtered, running into trouble with every big economic downturn. Today, with the first baby boomers in their early 50s, the country appears poised at the edge of a revolution in the retirement-age population. "We're in the quiet before the storm," says John Cromartie, an expert on retirement trends for the federal Economic Research Service. With seniors already the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, Del Webb finally decided to go after the "captive" market up north. The obvious choice was the Chicago area, whose residents proved more loyal to their city than any other urban northerners, according to Del Webb's surveys of tens of thousands of prospective buyers. "This was the first time we'd found a cold-weather climate that people just didn't want to leave," says market research director Paul Bessler. "There was a stronger desire to stay because of family, friends and social contacts -- this group of people just loved Chicago." But would they move into what amounts to a subdivision on the outer fringe of suburbia? Del Webb built it, and yes, they are coming in big numbers despite home prices as high as $300,000-plus -- significantly more than at Sun Cities in Arizona and elsewhere. More active, better-educated and wealthier than their predecessors, more of today's seniors are inclined to move into a social environment shared closely with their age-group peers. In Sun City Huntley, everyone is "55 and better." The dream of many retirees of a 52-week golf vacation life is a thing of the past, according to David Wolfe, author of Serving the Ageless Market and an occasional marketing consultant for Del Webb. "With a more affluent society, they've had many of these (leisure) experiences pre-retirement," Wolfe says. "People now look at retirement as a way to redefine their purpose. They are interested in classes, volunteer organizations and even part-time job opportunities." When Jim and Carolyn Kleen sold their one-acre property in the Chicago suburb of Dundee and moved out to a smaller home in Sun City Huntley last year, they wanted to forge new ties without breaking old ones. Both daughters are in college in Illinois and the Kleens still attend their old church and shop at the same supermarket they have for 20 years. But they're finding it easy to make new friends, surrounded by neighbors who work out at the community's state-of-the-art health club or participate in a stock investors' club, theater trips, bowling and other group activities. "It just kind of gets everybody into one beginning big boat again," says Carolyn, 56, a longtime flight attendant. Then there are the grandkids. Del Webb says research shows that is perhaps the biggest factor of all, and tries to tap into that thinking with Sun City billboards along Chicago highways that show vigorous gray-haired people frolicking with children. "I could see myself going south for a month at a time, but I could never move away from my grandchildren," says Donna Porto, 58, a nurse. She and her husband, originally from Mount Prospect, have six grandchildren nearby. The biggest drawback of retiring in the Frost Belt is, of course, the frost. Del Webb does its best to minimize it, barely mentioning the weather in a packet of promotional materials aimed at prospective buyers. But for most of these northerners it is a surprisingly minor consideration; after all, they grew acclimated decades ago. "We just got back from Florida, and I'll admit it was very nice," says Jim Kleen, 60, a high school art teacher who counts ice fishing among his hobbies. "But 12 months of sun -- I think I would get tired of it. "The colors in the fall are beautiful and the springs are fabulous. You don't get that in Florida." Besides, the ice fishing in the Sun Belt is quite poor. Prime Times Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA