At a time when even industry leaders describe traditional nursing home care as oppressive and dehumanizing, more facilities are replacing regimented, hospital-style care with a philosophy that treats residents as people, not patients.

In Mecklenburg County, Huntersville Oaks, now housed in a former tuberculosis hospital, is constructing both a new building and a new culture.

It joins other Carolinas homes that are redesigning buildings and re-educating employees. In Salisbury, the Lutheran Home at Trinity Oaks has transformed a cheerless gray-tiled shower room into a spa with a wall mural, heated towels, soothing music and aromatherapy. In Durham, The Forest at Duke has won a national award for a design that provides residents with cozy apartments in neighborhood settings.

"It's a realization that this is the residents' home. We simply work here," says Edward Cordick, an administrator at Pennybyrn at Maryfield, a High Point retirement community.

That will change when Carolinas HealthCare System opens a $25 million building in late 2007. The facility, with 168 beds, will be organized into households, each with a family room, full kitchen and its own caregivers.

The new structure will give residents more control over their lives. They'll wake and eat when they please. They'll socialize in homey family rooms instead of sitting beside nurses' stations. They won't have to go down the hall to bathe, because they'll all have their own showers.

"It's really a transformation of hearts," Huntersville Oaks Administrator Bev Cowdrick says.