Rising demand for home elevators

Ray and Eve Pech inside their Sevaria home elevator, which was recently installed as part of a larger renovation project.
Debra A. Aleksinas
Ray and Eve Pech inside their Sevaria home elevator, which was recently installed as part of a larger renovation project.
Ray and Eve Pech were in their late 30’s when they built their dream house 40 years ago on the side of a mountain overlooking Ski Sundown.
The modest, 2,000-square-foot, vertically-designed home offered privacy, ample space for their young family, stunning scenery — and stairs galore.
“It’s on three levels because it’s on the side of a hill,” said Ray Pech, a retired lawyer who serves on the Northwestern Connecticut Transit District board of directors. “We fell in love with the tremendous views.”
As for the stairs, he said, “We really didn’t think a lot about it. The thought never occurred to us that the day would come when we wouldn’t be able to go up stairs forever.”
The Pechs are among the growing number of Baby Boomers who aren’t planning to sell because they like their homes and have decided to age in place.
During a 2020 expansion project, they retrofitted their home with an elevator so that in their Golden Years they could safely enjoy all levels of their home, and also make it easier for visiting friends with mobility problems and wheelchair bound relatives to visit without climbing stairs.
“We thought, 'how do we make this house so that we can stay here?' and that was the logical choice, even though we didn’t need it physically yet,” Pech explained. “But I guess it’s there when we need it.”
Elevators are no longer just a luxury. Connecticut is home to 823,529 people aged 60 or older, representing 23% of the state’s population, according to a Healthy Aging Data Report. For many seniors, assisted living is out of reach due to rising costs and health concerns, particularly post-pandemic. Caregiving, too, can be costly for those on limited incomes.
A challenging housing market is discouraging senior homeowners from selling their homes, so many aging Baby Boomers are choosing to stay put. But with age comes the inevitable potential for decline in mobility. Home elevators, and to a lesser degree, stair lifts, are solutions to this growing problem, according to industry experts.
Elevator Service Company, Inc., (ESCO) based in Torrington, currently has licenses to install lifts and elevators in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island, and installs more than 100 residential elevators annually, according to company officials.
“For the Northwest Connecticut area, towns that are most abundant in our installations would be closer to the New York border, as the square footage of private homes are larger and more frequented to owners who live there year around,” said Managing Director Mat Montgomery.
Over the past five years, Montgomery said he has noticed a change in the attitude that elevators are reserved for the wealthy. “Today, the elevator is a mainstay in the design of the home as building outward for most is challenging with limits in land.”
And while the market continues to grow, he said, the manufacturing for the type of equipment offered by ESCO is growing, too, “bringing down costs which allow us to put these units in every type of home, regardless of wealth.”
The cost to install a residential elevator varies according to layout of the home, the number of levels served and the elevator style, said the ESCO official.
“Our customers all have different needs and wants for their elevator, so the price range will vary with equipment and product offerings.” Generally speaking, he said, a two-story home prepped for an elevator shaft requiring two closets stacked on top of each other, “will spend about $45,000 on a new elevator for this shaftway. This is much cheaper than the price of some newer cars, making an elevator a low barrier to entry to having the to move around your home freely and safely for decades.”
That estimate does not include construction costs to house the unit.
Ray Pech said when he and his wife crunched the numbers, their elevator cost them the equivalent of about three years of rent in a “reasonably nice” senior living complex.
“For us it made sense financially” to stay put, said Pech. “We built the house and decided to redesign the house again in 2020, and the elevator was the instigation of it.” They enlarged their living and dining areas to make up for lost space on the third level where the elevator shaft took up one of the bedrooms.
For the Pechs, the idea was to make the elevator look as if it had always been in the house. It appears as an ordinary door off the living room. Ray Pech opened the door, then slid aside a safety gate leading to a well-lit, wood-paneled box elevator with a weight capacity of 1,000 lbs. and ample space for a wheelchair and another adult.
Once inside, he secured the gate, and with a push of a button, the elevator, which operates via a pulley chain, smoothly and quietly ascended to the upper level at a barely noticeable speed of 40 feet per minute.
Beyond function, elevators can also be aesthetically attractive in a home.
“We do need to hang some art in there,” Eve Pech said to her husband as the elevator door opened on its return to the main level.
This is a developing story. Updates will be made as more information becomes available.
MILLERTON — Northern Dutchess Paramedics, the private emergency medical service provider contracted by North East, Amenia and Dover, is set to be acquired by Empress EMS, Town Supervisor Chris Kennan said at a special workshop meeting of the town board on Tuesday evening, Aug. 26.
Kennan shared what he called “breaking news” shortly after calling the meeting to order.
“We just learned that Northern Dutchess Paramedics has entered into a sales agreement with Empress, which serves most of Dutchess County,” he announced at the start of the meeting, which was originally scheduled to fine-tune zoning language for the town's commercial district.
Empress EMS is part of PatientCare EMS Solutions, a provider of emergency medical services that operates throughout the country under several brands, including Sunstar Paramedics, Med Fleet Ambulance, FleetPlus and School of EMS. PatientCare is owned by A+M Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut, which provides the company with financial backing and corporate oversight.
Kennan said he received a call from NDP owner Ed Murray with the news on Friday.
In a phone call with The News on Wednesday morning, Aug. 27, NDP Chief Operating Officer Mark Browne confirmed that while the acquisition “is on-schedule to happen,” the paperwork is not yet final.
While a potential shift in ownership could bring a variety of changes to North East and Millerton, including EMS response time, cost and the health and safety of the community, Supervisor Kennan said he received a verbal indication that Empress would honor the town’s existing contract with NDP, which was renewed for three years in December.
In 2025, the town is paying $511,558 for contracted services with NDP and the cost is expected to increase to $746,345 by 2027.
“In the short term, we should not be impacted by this change,” Kennan said. He added that the current contract with NDP has a stipulation that any new owner must honor the existing contract.
The news comes after Kennan and other towns have criticized the high costs of emergency medical services, which makes up a sizable chunk of the town’s budget and burdens taxpayers. Along with the Association of Towns, Kennan has urged New York Governor Kathy Hochul to sign a bill that has passed in the Senate and the Assembly and would exempt EMS services from the state’s property tax cap, giving local governments more flexibility to manage costs and sustain their EMS programs.
The bill would allow municipalities to better respond to EMS price hikes in their budgets, but it otherwise does not address those rising costs or poorer-than-typical service in rural communities like North East, Amenia and Dover.
Based in Yonkers, Empress EMS has a hub in Poughkeepsie and operates in Dutchess, Westchester, Rockland, Ulster, Putnam, Sullivan and Orange counties, as well as the Bronx. The company’s acquisition of NDP marks its continued expansion north – in 2021 Empress purchased EMStar and Mobile Life, pushing its way deeper into the Hudson Valley.
In January, Dutchess County Executive Sue Serino announced that Empress won the bid to become the primary provider of supplemental EMS services, a move made by the county in an effort to address long wait times for 911 calls. While successful in more densely populated areas, rural areas like North East, Amenia and Dover saw no visits from the supplemental services in quarter two of 2025.
According to the 2025 second quarter EMS report published by Dutchess County, all but one town in the county is serviced by either NDP or Empress. The merger would make Empress the sole EMS provider in the county except for the City of Beacon.
While there is no confirmed timeframe for the transition of ownership, Kennan said NDP owner Ed Murray indicated it was “moving quickly.”
While playing outside in the early post-pandemic days, Berkshire Busk! founder Eugene Carr had an epiphany: why not expand the idea of performing on the street (aka busking)into a full-fledged festival in Great Barrington?
As an entrepreneur and cellist, Carr envisioned a well-organized jamboree featuring regional talent, including musicians, acrobats, storytellers, fire-eaters, and more. He formed a team, connected with local businesses and the town of Great Barrington, and launched Berkshire Busk! in 2021. Since then, Berkshire Busk! has grown into a summer staple for Great Barrington.
In the summer of 2024, over 25,000 people experienced Berkshire Busk!. The festival is free to the public, provides a big boost to local businesses, and spectators can tip performers.
Busking takes place all over the world, either organized by individual performers or via busking festivals. Artists like The Roots, Tracy Chapman, Phoebe Bridgers, and Old Crow Medicine Show have all cut their teeth performing on the street.
General Manager Carli Scolforo is a Berkshire native with a love of music and writing. She can often be seen roaming the streets of Great Barrington, making sure everything’s in order, and serves as the festival’s face on social media.
“This year is the fifth anniversary of Berkshire Busk!, and it’s been an amazing summer,” said Scolforo. “We were able to welcome back a lot of our favorite performers, and bring in some new experiences as well. After getting rained out last year, we were able to host our first outdoor movie night in partnership with The Triplex Cinema and the Boondocks Film Society.”
Scolforo added, “This summer, we also introduced our first Open Mic Night, hosted by local recording artist and music producer Jackson Whalan. We were really pleased with the turnout of talent. The sheer amount of talent that’s hidden within an hour or so drive of Great Barrington always astounds us.”
Local businesses sponsor various busking spots, like the Berkshire Money Management Stage in the parking lot between the Triplex Cinema and Mama Lo’s BBQ. Typically, buskers bring their own amplification, while there are few spots — such as Berkshire Mountain Distillery in Sheffield — provide power.
Berkshire Busk! will end its season with a fireworks display on its last night on Saturday, Aug. 30.
Berkshire Busk! is endorsed by the Select Board of the Town of Great Barrington and is entirely supported by sponsorship fees from companies and organizations, as well as philanthropic donations from granting organizations, individuals and the Town of Great Barrington.
It operates under a fiscal sponsorship agreement with the Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires and participates in Mass Cultural Council’s Card to Culture program — in collaboration with the Department of Transitional Assistance, the Department of Public Health’s WIC Nutrition Program, the Massachusetts Health Connector, and hundreds of organizations — by making cultural programming accessible to those for whom cost is a participation barrier.
For more information, visit: berkshirebusk.com
What if the dog onstage was played by a person? That’s the delightful twist in A.R. Gurney’s “Sylvia,” opening at the Sharon Playhouse on Aug. 29. In this clever and heartfelt comedy, the title character — a stray pup who disrupts the lives of a married couple — is portrayed not in costume but by an actor who brings insight, charm, and chaos to the role.
Stepping into Sylvia’s paws is Jen Cody, who is returning to the Sharon Playhouse in a starring role for her third year in a row, ready to bring this spirited dog to life. She’s joined by Jonathan Walker as Greg, the middle-aged man smitten with his new four-legged friend, and Jennifer Van Dyck as Kate, his wife, whose patience and identity are tested by Sylvia’s sudden presence in their home.
Directed by Colin Hanlon, this production balances elements of comedy and emotional depth. Gurney’s script may be filled with laughs but at its core, “Sylvia” explores loyalty, companionship, and how love sometimes arrives in unexpected forms. The play premiered Off-Broadway in 1995 and has since become an audience favorite for its wit, warmth, and originality.
Rounding out the cast is Sienna Brann, taking on a trio of roles that highlight the play’s comic versatility. The design team includes Christopher and Justin Swader (scenic), Kathleen DeAngelis (costumes), Bobbie Zlotnik (wigs), Wheeler Moon (lighting), and Graham Stone (sound), ensuring the story is grounded in a fully realized world, albeit one occasionally seen from a dog’s point of view.
Performances run through Sept. 7 at the Sharon Playhouse. For tickets and more information, visit sharonplayhouse.org.