What if the residents of a large urban neighborhood could be assured of continuing to live in their own homes even into extreme old age?

This actually is the aim of Beacon Hill Village, a newly formed community of people over age 60 living in this area of Boston. Only four weeks ago, the first members signed up to receive services that will enable them to stay living where they now reside.

Judith Willett, the executive director of this “virtual retirement community,” expresses the high hopes behind the new venture. A dynamic woman, highly experienced in providing services to older people, she recently explained to visitors how the community will function. Although the organization’s active phase is only four weeks old, its structure has been carefully planned over the last few years.

“We are the access point,” she says of her office at Beacon House on Myrtle Street. A board of directors made up of older people will have responsibility for steering the new venture and seeing that it develops according to plan.

The idea behind Beacon Hill Village is one long familiar to specialists in the field of aging. They refer to it as “aging in place” and many of them regard it as the ideal for later life. Research has shown that large percentages of older Americans want to live out their most mature years in this fashion.

Many other people, of course, prefer to move away and live in places planned exclusively for older people, but they are clearly in a minority. I myself find the virtual community idea intensely attractive and would welcome having one in the urban neighborhood where my family lives.

The new community has three main providers.

The first is the nonprofit organization known as Rogerson Communities. It takes responsibility for financing, accounting, and fundraising. This agency has also contributed the office site, free of rent for the first year of operations.

Secondly, Houseworks, an agency based in Newton, will furnish a wide variety of direct service providers. These provide home health, transportation (including escorts), home adaptation and repairs, concierge services such as errands, and housecleaning.

The third component of the system is the Massachusetts General Hospital with its Senior Health program. This MGH program features an interdisciplinary approach whereby physicians, nurses, social workers, therapists, and others will work together to benefit patients.

If this new community sounds utopian, in many ways it actually is. Already inquiries have come from the far reaches of the country with people wanting to know how it works. Some other people in the Greater Boston area have begun fantasizing about how such a program could serve people in their own communities.

Of course, utopia costs money. The initial yearly fee to join the community is currently $500 for a single person and $600 for a household. Starting July first, the price will rise to $750 for an individual, $1000 for a household.

And the individual services will come at a price as well, though Houseworks will discount its standard fees by ten percent and the MGH services will be covered by patients’ standard health insurance.

To make community memberships affordable for people whose income falls short, Judith Willett has been applying for grants.

But money remains an important issue. Middle income people are the most at risk population, she says, because they lack the safety net provided to those lower on the income scale.

To get a skilled and objective view of the Beacon Hill plan I called John O’Neill, the veteran director of Somerville Cambridge Elder Services. To his mind, the new venture has a good chance of succeeding. “It could actually work there,” he says, after pointing out how difficult this kind of plan has been to pull off in other places. And it’s much better than expecting the state or federal government to do anything: “If they wait for a public solution – – who knows?”

On the visit to talk with Judith Willett my wife and I were joined by two of our friends, Clare Corbett and Clare Chapman. They were interested in exploring how the Beacon Hill virtual retirement community might possibly serve as a model for their parish church. My wife and I, for our part, were interested in learning how residents in our own urban neighborhood might think about starting such a venture.

To her credit, considering that her community has had only a few weeks’experience, Judith Willett agreed to speculate with us about the Beacon Hill model being applicable to our communities.

“I think you would need larger groups of people than one church and one neighborhood,” she said. To meet the annual budget of some $250,000, her community needs at least 300 people. And members of her board have contributed $100,000 toward the expenses of the first year.

But we can still dream of ways to emulate the creativity and adventurous spirit of our friends on Beacon Hill.

Further information about the new community is available at 617 723-9713.

Richard Griffin