The Best Communities in Santa Barbara County, CA

"I researched this property for myself. I was very impressed with the facility very clean and administrator was very help. I was missing paper work and the marketing director came out to my home. One of the things I really like they offer entry fee this fee is good for life. Facility has three different styles of living residential, assisted, and nursing care. Property has restaurant style dining with white table cloths and menus. In the package they offer 7 trays free a month to have dinner deliver to your room, over 7 trays there is a fee. "

"We toured Valle Verde Assisted Living. The rooms were fine, but it won't work out for what we need. They were clean and adequate, nothing special, it was just like a bedroom that opens up into a living room. I saw their rec room and they were keeping everyone busy. The staff-members were all very congenial and helpful. The residents could order off of the menu and there were selections for meals in the dining room"

"We went to Covenant Living at the Samarkand. The grounds were absolutely delightful. You felt like you were living in a park. Things opened up to beautiful landscaping, and the pool was lovely. It had a sense of being quite lively. There was a lot of activity going on outside, and it seemed very friendly and very warm. The staff person who showed us around was a delight. We love the history of the place. It had actually been a hotel at one point, and it had sort of the architectural bones of the old Spanish style hotel. It was easy to get to from the freeway. It's very close to a main street in Santa Barbara, which was nice. We liked it very much except for two things. One is that the units we saw just seemed quite cramped. I realize that in Santa Barbara you do a lot of outdoor living, but the living room/dining area in the unit felt sort of like my grandmother's assisted living. It didn't feel like independent living. It was kind of a downer for me. I'm waiting to see if they had some bigger apartments. As you're wandering around, you don't have the feeling that a religious based organization owns the place. However, all of their vehicles have giant lettering that say Covenant (which on the West Coast sounds very conservative theological), and it's not sort of our direction. It felt a little strange to us. They had a big place for services. One side was sort of the synagogue side; the other side was kind of the nondenominational Christian side. Everything was very definitely resident driven. The staff mentioned, "We're getting a lot of people who want to sew. We're going to have to make some space for the quilters." I love that; that's exactly what you want to hear. The rooms were just too small. They felt cramped, and their kitchens were quite small. Their accommodations were not that good, but the grounds were stunning. I love the park and the way it was designed. I loved the landscape architecture of the place, including the actual architecture of the building and their layout for the residents. If you were single, it might be very different. It was cramped for a couple."

"I've got some friends who live in Casa Dorinda. It's a very high-end, beautiful, but quite expensive place. That's the top-of-the-line, incredible food, and beautiful architecture. Everything about that place is excellent. The staff was very attentive, polite, and delightful. The food is excellent, and even their cappuccinos are good. I noticed they were having an exercise class, they had lots of activities, and took different buses to different places."