South Carolina’s ranks continue to swell with aging residents who want to spend their hard-earned “recreational” retirement years lounging on the area’s beaches, eating at local restaurants and enjoying the area’s thriving cultural scene.

But after those golden years pass, some will have to move from what now serves as a retirement residence into a real retirement home, whether classified as assisted living, a skilled-care nursing home or a dementia-level facility.

That need for medical supervision likely will place a greater burden on South Carolina’s existing retirement-age housing options.

When the time comes, will the state’s senior living facilities be able to handle them all?

“We have never had (such a large age group) come through the pipeline in such a short span of time,” said Pat Mason, whose Columbia research and publication firm, the Center for Carolina Living, shows that Palmetto State-bound retirees are healthier, better educated and wealthier.

Roughly one in four of the nation’s 74 million baby boomers plan to move upon retirement — and probably to a place that won’t require them to pack a snow shovel and ice scraper.