Though she had a lot of experience in condominium living back in the States, the retired and widowed research scientist/academic dean remembers finding nothing suitable in Calgary. “My kids were here in the West, but I never saw anything I liked. I didn’t want anything that was a square box. I was ready to give up, and one Christmastime, I said to the realtor ‘is there anything over in this area that I’m in?’ ” she recalls.

Turns out, there was one last condo to view. Leigh took a look at the condo then flew back to Montreal. “I thought it was the best one I had seen but I went home and thought about it and put an offer around January.” That was seven-and-a-half years ago. Today, she still calls her Manors at West Park apartment condo home.

The 12-year old Manors at West Park has 59 units on three floors. Residents share common amenities such as the grounds on the courtyard, a great room and guest suite. The latter can be rented for $25 a night for visitors.
Leigh says she is lucky to have a corner ground-floor unit that faces the courtyard. It allows for more privacy, she says, “As I have nobody on three sides of me.” Leigh also finds the unit easily accessible to the basement parking area. “I just go out my door into the hallway and through another door downstairs into the parkade and that’s where my car is,”she says.

Leigh describes her one-floor two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit as ideal to her living requirements. “It’s quite open and I have an eat-in kitchen,” she says. One bedroom serves as a den when she has no company. Her dining room/living room’s French doors also open into the den, enabling her to extend her entertaining area and provide free-flow traffic when she has visitors.

Another plus Leigh finds in her condo unit is her access to two balconies, giving her a choice between sun and shade. The other balcony also faces a small parking area, one which she happily discovered, can serve as a drop off point for her groceries. “I can drive by the balcony and throw my groceries over and go down to the parkade. Then I can come up and I don’t have to carry anything. I can just open my balcony and take my groceries.”

Leigh points out that there is an advantage to not having too many in-house amenities in her apartment condo. “I do my exercises at the Jewish Centre where I do everything so that’s a plus for me,” says this active senior.
Providing a balance to her active life, Leigh spends her leisure time between shopping and the theatre for concerts and ballet. “I am five minutes to Chinook Centre and Southcentre and I can walk to Glenmore Landing which is a nice shopping area and very accessible. I can drive down to Heritage and get on the LRT and go to Jack Singer Concert Hall or Jubilee for ballets,” she says.

Leigh likes the independence provided by her condo lifestyle. “I think when you live in a condo you can be as much on your own as you want. You know that you have neighbours too.” She knows from years of living in a condo that she can rely on somebody to check on her unit if she goes away for trips or holidays. “You can just shut your door as long as you tell your fire warden that you’re going to be away,” she says.

Leigh gives kudos to the maintenance company for its upkeep of the Manors at West Park. “They check on the building and facilities and make sure it’s comfortable and kept well and that rules are followed in the building,” she says.

Square-boxed living spaces not being her style, Leigh has repainted portions of her entrance way and kitchen a sunny pale yellow cream and terra cotta colour. “So when you walk in, you don’t feel boxed in,” she says.

With so many upsides to her condo, Leigh adds that a slice of nature comes her way year-round. “We get deer and jackrabbits that come to the courtyard and eat the berries off the mountain ash tree and then sleep,” she says. That pleasure extends to seeing her grandchild watch the scene from the balcony, a scene that is becoming rarer in Calgary.