Giving the family a lift Giving the family a lift (August 19, 2005)

Home elevators can carry people, laundry or luggage

By Patricia Bass

When Anne McElyea of Crescent Park began having trouble walking, she did not resign herself to living on the first floor of her multi-story home, nor did she want to change her lifestyle in the slightest.

"We didn't want to move to a one-story home," she said, adding "We hadn't found any homes in the area that pleased us and would accommodate us and our family." Nor did McElyea want a chairlift.

"Chairlifts really signify that there is illness in the house, to me," she said. "They are not very pretty."

With comfort and design in mind, she and her husband adapted their house for her convenience in an even more drastic way -- by installing an elevator inside their home.

"An elevator can carry several people at once and our laundry. I can even bring up potting soil and huge bags of bird seed for our [second-floor] deck," she said. "It has brought our family together in a way we had no idea we would be using it!"

McElyea is only one of the increasing number of people in the Bay Area who are turning to home elevators for mobilizing the elderly, for aiding the disabled -- and even for the sole purpose of moving peoples' luggage, according to Terry Pope, the president of Acme Elevators, based in Benecia, and a 35-year veteran of the elevator business.

Interest in home elevators picked up about eight or nine years ago, he said, and popularity has increased in the last two and a half years. "Americans are living longer and considering their current homes their 'dream homes,'" Pope explained. "They expect to live there well through old age, and home elevators become a convenience."

He also sees people planning for more multi-generational living by adding an elevator to their new homes to accommodate aging relatives.

But not all elevators are bought with the elderly or disabled in mind. One Los Altos Hills resident recently rebuilt her house with an elevator primarily because her property was located on such a steep slope.

"In our original house, you had to come up a full flight of steps to reach the main level from the garage. The topography of the land made it difficult to reach most of the house, so we decided to install an elevator for packages or suitcases," she said. "I probably use it 90 percent of the time now! I did not think I would use it as much as I do."

The family also considered buying a lift, but decided that an elevator would be more efficient and comfortable. Plus, children would enjoy it more.

Unfortunately, although they enjoy it, kids can also pose a problem with elevators. Angel Brown, co-owner of ABC Elevator Maintenance in Palo Alto, is familiar with the calls that come into her business, and many relate to kids.

"Children think that elevators are a toy, and then they get stuck," Brown said. "A couple of little girls in Hillsdale decided to play in the elevator during a slumber party this week, and when they got stuck we came and helped them out."

On top of that, purposeful vandalism is an issue, according to Brown. The Palo Alto City Hall building downtown had a problem with adolescents who would take the elevator up to the donut-shaped upper stories, disable the elevator to avoid being caught, and then rollerblade around the roof and top floors.

New security cameras prevented further errant bladers, but other problems remain more difficult to fix. Take the elderly home-owners, for instance, said Brown, who pull the emergency stop on the elevator.

"Often disoriented old people pull the stop without noticing it," she said. "Then they call us and we talk them through the problem."

Adding an elevator requires a clear space on each floor in the same spot, which is often impossible to find, according to Pope. Because of this, most people who want elevators are either building new houses that include elevators in the floor plan, or they are adding the elevators to the outside of their houses.

McElyea agreed that "finding where it would fit was definitely one of the most difficult parts of the process," but she and her husband were able to adapt their home for the addition of an elevator. Adding a home elevator is also an expensive process, which ranges from $18,000 to $25,000, according to both Acme Elevator and ABC Elevator Maintenance.

By comparison, buying a chairlift only puts back customers $5,000 to $10,000, or $15,000, if the chairlift is on a circular staircase or made of fancy metals, said Brown.
Editorial intern Patricia Bass writes for the Palo Alto Weekly, the Voice's sister paper. She can be reached at pbass@paweekly.com.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.