American House Keene

My mother has moved into American House Keene. She's doing good. It's a beautiful location and it is nice. All the people that I've met so far are excellent. Their main goal was to support the residents there. What I like about it is they have so many daily activities for all the residents. They got their indoor theater, a salon, a little art area, and bingo and my mom loves bingo, so she enjoys it. It's cool. They have a library there that people can use. The activities and what they provide are just plain excellent. I don't have to worry about mom one bit. The nurses are taking care of her. All the people that work at that facility have one goal in mind and that's to make them, like my mom, very happy and so forth. When I first walked into that place, it just blew my mind away. It's excellent. It was a blessing. It happened they had an opening come up and I was able to get mom in there. It was awesome. They give them a monthly magazine published and in that magazine, they have the whole month of activities and they do, as a rule, probably a minimum of five activities a day. In the morning, they have their breakfast from 7:30 to 9:30. From there, they go into their little exercise at 9:30. At 10:30, they have a coffee hour. It's just plain awesome. From there, they go to lunch. Then they usually have some type of other activities, either cornhole or balloon volleyball. They have shuffleboards. They usually have two movies, one matinee, and then they have one later on in the evening. It runs for about an hour and a half. They got a beautiful place and everything is there. Mom can get her hair done or she can get a manicure and a massage. It's unreal. They have a bus and they go to the nearest shopping centers and if she needs to go to a doctor, they take her right to the doctor and no problem. Everything is cared for. Everything is provided for her. I can't say enough about it. Everybody that I spoke with was so polite and kind, and they got one goal in mind, to take care of the residents. She likes to do karaoke and she loves country western music and she's got her own machine, so they're going to set that up. Everybody wants her to get that because everybody's looking forward to singing. Mom has coordinated with the activity advisor and everything is cool. Mom loves it. I've met the chef. They have some awesome food. My brother and I ate six or seven meals from breakfast, lunch, and dinner and it's good. It's beautiful. It's an old mill that they converted over and they kept the theme throughout, throughout the windows, the same size, so the add-on was the same theme and everything else. It's nice. They keep everybody going and it's good. The whole purpose of having assisted living is to keep them occupied far as I'm concerned. For what they're doing, providing and offering, as far as I know, it's the best deal in the area for your money. The best bang for your buck, really, as far as I'm concerned.

I toured American House Keene assisted living and as far as everything, the amenities, the people, and the staff was excellent. The facilities were very clean, airy, and open. The setting was very, very good in terms of meeting my standards which is not just like any hospital setting, it was more of the homeyness. Somewhere that would be more conducive for anybody that needed those facilities to feel a little bit more like a home rather than in a clinical setting. It's also in a location that would be more convenient than the others that I had a chance to see. Their location was the best, and I don't need to go further.

American House Keene was very nice. Cindy did a good job giving us a tour and explaining everything about assisted living there. We don't feel it would fit my mother's needs. She has more needs than assisted living there can give, I think. One of the requirements would be that you have to be able to exit by yourself in an emergency, such as a fire if the elevators didn't work. The elderly person would have to be able to get themselves down the stairs safely and out the door. I don't think my mother could do that, so that was a no. We saw the model room. It was a one bedroom. It had a nice kitchen, which included a stove, a refrigerator, a microwave, and I think a sink. It's very nice. There was a living room, a bedroom, and a nice bathroom. I think the bathroom had a shower (no bathtub), and one would have to bring your own furniture. It's not a furnished situation. My mother's already sold her furniture and her house, so she doesn't have that. There's transportation provided twice a week to shopping, and one can have assistance. The basic level of assistance would be you'd get 30 minutes of one on one assistance. If you needed more, you could have different levels of assistance for an additional fee of $450 each level for every 30 minutes per month. For my mother, it would be too far to go.

We visited American House Keene. We like it because of the location, and it had the amenities that my parents were looking for; particularly 2-bedroom, 2-bath apartments. Everyone I met was very helpful and answered all our questions. The facility is absolutely beautiful. We were very impressed with it, as well as the services that are included in the monthly fee. They include a lot of which is unlike what we found at other facilities. Overall, we were very impressed. We met with the community relations director, he was very friendly, nice, and very accommodating. We even met the executive director of the facility who was very nice. During the tour, we saw that they had a movie theater where they screen movies, an activities room that we could book for parties. The dining room was very beautiful. They even had an area outside where you could dine when it's nice weather. It was just really beautiful.

I went to American House Keene. I was able to look at one of the rooms that they had available -- not really the whole facility -- so I was able to enter and meet with the staff. It went very well, and the information was thorough. It was exceptional. It was the cleanest room I have ever seen: beautiful, well lit, and bigger than I thought. The room itself was amazing; I haven't seen anything like that in a while. Considering everything is limited to the area, I felt her information was thorough enough, and also her pictures and the layout of the facility that she showed me, and the layout of other rooms as well. Normally they have crafts, and as allowed, they are beginning to have common meals as they did before COVID. It's limited, but I felt that they have activities there, and the company of others is available, too.

Everything at Bentley Commons at Keene is excellent. We're getting excellent care, excellent meals, and good accommodations. We can sit out on the porch with the other residents just chit-chatting on a beautiful summer night. One of the most enjoyable things we do here is we have a musician who entertains us at least once a week. Tonight, some of the residents are going on a bus to watch a concert.