If Merriam-Webster defines a Renaissance Man as “a person who has wide interests and is expert in several areas,” then John Kelsch is one – although he’d probably be the last to tell you that. “I’m just not one for a lot of personal publicity,” says this modest, widowed father of three grown sons. John Kelsch.

But as someone who is a wine collector, gourmet cook, avid golfer, “advanced intermediate” skier, recreational gardener, volunteer AARP tax preparer, world traveler, and retired financial executive of a major, international technology and services corporation (Xerox), he’d be considered a Renaissance Man by anyone else.

“I’ve always had a significant interest in drinking wine,” John says with a laugh. When John and his wife Pat lived in Connecticut, “A friend of mine had an older house that had a natural basement … and so I started to buy some wine to lay down in his basement. So that gave me the chance to age it as opposed to just going in and buying it.”

When John and Pat moved down to Cary 12 years ago, they built their home with a wine cellar of their own. Today, he usually has 300 to 325 bottles of wine in his collection. “The joke my wife always said was, ‘You’ll never drink them all. Your sons are going to inherit them.’ And I’d say, ‘Don’t be sure of that!’”

His favorite? “In what I call ‘fancy wines’ – expensive and laid down for a long time – my favorite, clearly, is Italian Barolo. That’s not the stuff you can drink very often. On a more daily basis, I tend to drink a lot of Pinot Noirs from Oregon – that’s the French Burgundy grape.’”

And when he moves to SearStone, what will this oenophile do? “One way or another, I’m going to have some kind of wine storage!”

John describes himself and his late wife Pat as “pretty good advanced planners.” As soon as they moved to Cary, they began to “look around the southeast for a place to retire, on and off, for like six, seven years. We were getting up there in age and we were both very convinced that the last thing we wanted to do was have our kids take care of us. And so I was very interested in continuing care retirement communities…. It did give us a significant amount of knowledge about these sorts of things and what’s really available.… My neighbor down here used to be the mayor in Cary, and he told me once, ‘You know, there’s something going up in this area out on the other side of town….’ Then some golfing friends of mine from MacGregor mentioned that SearStone had started up and they mentioned Andi. So they gave me her name and I called her and that’s how I got involved in SearStone!”

Being near his golf course – MacGregor Downs Country Club – is key. John likes to play three days a week – “and then I usually go out and practice one or two other. I’m out there quite a bit. But not during tax season. Then it’s only twice a week.”

That’s because, during tax season, John volunteers with AARP to prepare tax returns. For the past six years, he’s used his background in finance to help low-income people in need of tax filing assistance. “You’re helping people, and that makes you feel good,” John explains. “And it’s fun to be aware of what is going on in other people’s lives that we don’t normally come in contact with. They’re very appreciative of the help we give them.”

To unwind from the chaos of tax schedules, John always makes sure to fit cooking into his schedule. “I grill four or five times a week – if you figure I go out to dinner probably one night a week.” Is there a “chef’s specialty”? “I love grilled lamb chops outside,” John says, without hesitation. “I do lamb shanks in the oven – that’s a favorite. But I just have all sorts of variety. I do what you might describe as an elaborate meal every night. I just like to cook!”

And then there’s skiing. That was always a shared Kelsch family hobby, based from their vacation homes in the New York Adirondacks and in Crested Butte, Colorado. Once John and Pat consolidated to Cary, annual ski trips included Sun Valley, Idaho; Park City, Utah; Copper Mountain, Colorado; and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. John continues to go out west every winter to ski.

To keep fit and flexible year-round, John has his own stretching exercise routine, “just to maintain muscle tone. And the days that I don’t golf, I ride a stationary bike to keep my legs in shape – both for skiing and for golf. That’s all. It’s about 30 minutes a day.”

So what attracts such a robust, approachable, and well-balanced person like John Kelsch to a place like SearStone? “A number of things.” Among them, the fact that SearStone itself is “very flexible.” “You gotta have options,” John emphasizes. He rattles of a list of his priorities in a community – all which SearStone fulfills: the variety of housing accommodations; “the health care connection – that’s ultimately the most important thing”; “of course, it’s an upscale community, which is important – that’s obviously the kind of place I live in now”; “and the proximity that it will have some shopping that you can walk to. Now, that’s very important to me.” And let’s not forget: “The proximity to MacGregor Downs Country Club is a critical piece. It’s probably a 10 minute drive.”

When SearStone opens, John looks forward to how he’ll weave together his new community with his old pastimes – possibly forming a golf group; participating in wine tasting contests, cooking lessons and fitness programs; gardening; going to the symphony; traveling with other adventuresome SearStone Members – both within U.S. and overseas…. “I’m game to join in things like that.” Living at SearStone will ensure John gets what he desires most: “I want the flexibility to do what I want when I want.”

John admits, “I was sort of a typical Type A workaholic in many ways when I was working. And my buddies at work all said, ‘My gosh, what are you gonna do when you retire?’ And my wife’s friends would say something, too, about, ‘Well, he’ll be under your feet all the time!’ And she said, ‘Oh, you don’t know him.’ I’ve always said the same thing: I’ve got so darn many things I’ve been putting off for all these years that I couldn’t do! So, as soon as I retired, I haven’t had a day where I’ve said, ‘What am I gonna do today?’ I’m always doing something!”

So, as you can clearly see, unlike the 300+ wines in his collection, there’s no leaving John Kelsch on the shelf.