Independent Living Communities in Elmhurst, IL

"My parents are in Brookdale Glen Ellyn. My father was in assisted living there for a month, but now they are in the same independent living apartment. They have an amazing staff. Many of them have been there for over ten years. It's a very supportive community. They were able to provide a 30-day assisted living respite care for my dad. They provided an apartment for him and the furniture for a 30-day stay before my mom moved there. That put together a very difficult puzzle for us for how we were going to care for him as he recovered. Then we were all in agreement that he could move upstairs to independent living with my mom. They are both there now and doing very well. I think they primarily need support with meals and transportation right now, which Brookdale provides. They have been wonderful about that. The front desk staff is great. The marketing people are wonderful. What they like about the dining hall is that the man who's in charge has a town hall meeting every month where all the residents come and talk to him about the menus and what they like about the food, and what they don't. He very much includes them in his planning, so it's wonderful. I have not personally been there for a meal, but my mother is very particular and has been very pleased with the food, so that's a good sign."

"Cantata is the new name for what had previously been the British Home and apparently its name was changed just a few weeks ago. I was told that the name change is an attempt to overhaul the stuffy image associated with the British Home. The word "Cantata" is derived from the Italian word "cantare" which means "to sing" and the name change is meant to convey a kind of new age composition of voices to care for the elderly. To my mind I never had that image of the British Home as being stodgy. I used to go biking along the bike trail just outside the home and I was more curious than anything. I had always associated the Home with Brookfield Zoo which is practically in its backyard. Nevertheless I can appreciate what the nursing home is trying to do in recreating its image. I would recommend this assisted living facility based on its cleanliness, the amount of light exposure from its modern windows and an ample size health center that also allows membership from the community. Indeed on the day that I visited I saw some very energetic seniors on bikes and tread mills and I was very impressed. These folks were trying to live life to its fullness! That along with the light streaming from the floor to ceiling windows in the lobby and throughout sold me. Like any place that you are deciding to live there are pros and cons. Another positive is the proximity to medical staff that are housed at the facility. The thing that I did not like about the facility was the rather nondescript furnishings (the chairs and tables throughout). The sitting rooms just didn't seem like a place I could relax, but that could just be my own taste. The dining room I thought was pretty generic (except for the windows). The menu did not impress me, but I will say that I did get a whiff of what smelled like peach cobbler and that was fantastic. I was told that meal preparation had been taken over by new management recently. I also did not care for the individual apartments, especially the carpet which was dark and seemed institutional. I will say that the facility was clean and smelled good. The receptionist and customer relations specialist were very nice and helpful. Overall I would recommend Cantata and this may be a great time to move here not only because of its name change, but the kind of upbeat image it is trying to promote. "

"I've been to Brookdale Oak Park several times for events. I actually would move in there now if it wasn't $5000 a month. There's a couple of other people from the senior center that also attend the same events that I do. The staff treats us really well, and we've been invited for various things, food and stuff like that. We can see that the residents are happy there. They intermingle with each other. They get good food in the restaurant. I'm very impressed with the way that things are run there. I don't think the residents have to do anything. I think that's all taken care of for them, aside from keeping their personal stuff arranged and all that. Everything looks clean to me. I've been in rooms, but not when they were occupied with people. They have an art room. They have activities. Sometimes, they have music and some of the residents will get up and dance. It's real cute."

"This is such a wonderful community. Beautiful court yard and they have great staff that care. The rooms are very specious. Great place to live "

"I visited Generations at Oakton Arms. The least I liked was that it wasn't a one-level place, it has elevators but other than that, the amenities and everything they offer were great. They had maintenance out cleaning up when I was out there. It didn't feel like a nursing home. It feels like a little home. They had a workout room and a gathering room where people could go and practice their religion and the staff was pretty nice."

"It was a very nice facility, but the location felt like it was a little bit more in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing really around it to walk to. They showed me this really lovely rooftop patio area where people could go and sit. There was a local school that was across the street, and you could watch the kids playing baseball. They had a good workout room and a library. The staff was especially nice because when we arrived, I think there was a mix up in the scheduling. He didn't know we were coming for a tour, but he was still incredibly well prepared, gracious, and well organized."

"We've had a pretty good experience so far. My dad is there and it seems like they take care of the residents, but the worst thing is with this COVID now it's really hard to see him for a long time. Still, it's been a pretty good experience overall. If something happens, or something comes up, they always update and call you, or if I need to know something, I call them, and if they cannot answer the phone, they call me back in an hour or so. He's picky with his food but he said he likes it. It's an older place, but everything seems clean, updated, and organized. They play bingo too, take them to Walmart on a bus to buy stuff, and some tours that they offer sometimes, so the activities seem pretty good."

"I toured Clarendale Six Corners for my uncle. It's convenient. They seem to care, and that he's going to get the care that he needs. It seemed like a nice place. The staff was very friendly, very informative, and caring. The facility was brand-new. The size of the room was adequate and seemed to have a positive atmosphere."

"I visited, and I'm still thinking about it. I liked it, but it's very expensive, and there's a lot of stuff that I would have to pay for. It's convenient to where I have to be, though, and they offer almost anything you can think of. The food is very good, and everything is highly rated there. That's probably why it's expensive. It's just so big; they have about 500 people there. You'd better be able to walk, too, because it has acreage and trees around it."

"I love the Moorings of Arlington Heights. The facilities were lovely. I really liked the people that we met. Everything was nice. However, if one of my parents needs assisted living, they'll have to move out of their apartment and move into the assisted living center, so there would be too many moves. What I like best about this place was the staff and the look of the place. It was clean, bright, and attractive. Also the staff was extremely friendly. The people there also seemed very happy. "

"Belmont Village is a place that we might have chosen if there wasn't an alternative close by. It doesn't really have continuing care in the same sense, but it does have a memory unit which I don't really want. Belmont has organized rooms and pods of ten to fifteen people with a common living room which makes it easy to meet people. It is something that can really benefit people that are not very outgoing. It's got a big gathering place which is just inside the door and a dining facility right next to it. It seems to be very pleasant. The sales woman seems to know residents by name in spite of the fact that there were a lot of them. A lot of them spoke to her as they passed by. I was impressed by that. The food was very good. Because we wanted a continuing care community, it was particularly appealing to us, but it did seem like a cadillac place for this. It is intended to be a different kind of place. "

"Autumn Green at Midway Village was nice and clean. The rooms were beautiful. The staff member who assisted me with the tour was really nice and welcoming. They had a nice dining area, and they had a cafeteria where you could see the cooks in the back preparing the food. They had arts and crafts, and they took them on trips to the grocery stores. They had another room where they could play games. They had a pool table in there and they had workout rooms."

"my mother is a resident - her apartment is very nice - very clean - staff is great - newsletter each day keeps the family abreast of facility details - especially during Covid- would highly recommend this community."

"Independence Village of Naperville had the best rooms that we have seen, in the way they were laid out and their cabinet space. It was a one bedroom and one bath that we looked at. They also have a one bedroom with two baths but that was more money. The owner's son gave us the tour. They have about three places and so it is owned by a family. They make sure they have activities on Sunday. He gave me a paper where they had all their activities on it. Their library was kind of just bookshelves, but they had a beauty salon. Location-wise I loved it. Their meal choices were simpler than other places, and I liked that. At our age, we don't need big meals."