Holiday Retirement

William E. Colson and his father, Hugh Colson, founded Holiday Management Company in Salem, Oregon in 1971. William Colson was also President and Managing General Partner for Holiday Management Company's in-house company, Colson & Colson General Contractor, Inc.

Founding and early history

The company's first community, Kamlu Retirement Inn-Vancouver, opened in Vancouver, Washington on November 1, 1971. Holiday Management Company added a second community, Edgewood Downs, in Beaverton, Oregon on June 1, 1977.

Holiday Retirement's first nine communities were only in the western United States, largely in Washington, Oregon, California, and Idaho. The company expanded east by opening Harrison Regent in Ogden, Utah on July 1, 1985. Communities were also built in Pueblo, Colorado; Colorado Springs, Colorado; and Amarillo, Texas in 1985. The Victorian became Holiday Retirement's first Canadian community, opening on August 1, 1987 in Victoria, British Columbia; however, Holiday Retirement sold its Canadian communities in 2014.

The company's name changed to Holiday Retirement in 1987, and it acquired or built multiple communities every year from 1988 to 2009. The company's largest growth occurred in 1998 and 1999 with the addition of 22 properties in both years.

Fortress Investment Group

Colson sold Holiday Retirement in 2007 to Fortress Investment Group LLC of New York. Colson died of colon cancer on May 20, 2007. Upon selling Holiday, Colson agreed to a five-year stay on building new retirement communities and then in their sixth year, they began building under the name "Hawthorn".

Holiday Retirement headquarters were officially relocated to Lake Oswego, Oregon on April 16, 2012. Five years later, the company announced it would be moving its headquarters again to Winter Park, Florida in April 2017. The move was completed in July 2017. Fortress Investment Group later became a subsidiary of Softbank Group in December 2017.

Atria Senior Living

Fortress sold Holiday Retirement to Atria Senior Living, based in Louisville, Kentucky, in a deal announced in 2021. The merger brought together the third (Holiday) and seventh (Atria) largest senior living community operators nationwide. At the time of the sale, the properties transferred onwership to Welltower, a real estate investment trust. The deal was valued at over $1.5 billion.

The combined company expected to become the second-largest retirement home operator nationwide upon the deal's closing. The combined company provides services for more than 45,000 residents, with over than 19,000 employees working in 447 communities across 45 states and seven Canadian provinces.

Holiday Retirement was one of the first companies in the U.S. to develop independent living communities for seniors. Each community provides private apartments or cottages.

Unlike nursing homes or assisted living communities, the majority of properties operated under the Holiday brand are independent retirement living communities, where residents are not provided skilled nursing or assistance with daily activities such as bathing, dressing, eating, or assistance with taking medication.