Founded in 1891, Deutsches Altenheim, the German Home for the Aged, caps a thirteen-acre landscape. With its low-pitched hipped roof, asymmetrical clipped gable, squarish porch supports, overhanging eaves, and brackets, the original Craftsman-style house provided a domestic ambiance for the first twenty residents of German descent. Expansion in the 1930s lengthened the facade by adding a clipped gable end pavilion to balance the original, and the 1990–1991 extension increased capacity to over one hundred.

Charles de Marco designed the innovative Wilhelmina Schrafft Pavilion (1999) to respond to the behavioral patterns of Alzheimer patients, using neighborhoods with activity spaces, color coding, and memory boxes to provide visual cues. The exterior stucco veneer over metal studs and half timbering blends with the Germanic flavor of the earlier structures.