Givens Estates

Laurie

I toured the assisted living and independent living at Givens Estates. They offer a wellness center that includes a huge pool and a hot tub. They offer multiple room sizes and they also offer 500-acre walking trails and community gardens. They offer full service from independent living house to memory care unit and it's non-profit. Even if you run out of money, you never have to leave. They have activities, too. The facility is amazing.

acaringdaughter4

Health center is filthy with spoons and urine on the floor and feces on toilet. My dad was sitting soiled. Nobody answers phones and phones go down all the time. Management says what they think you want to hear. Exorbitant prices and the care is lacking. Understaffed and slow Internet and phones go out all the time, yet they keep building. They focus on the green and that seems to be all.

Lynn

Givens Estates is excellent; a friend of mine stays there. It's a Methodist Church-based community, but it's expensive, and he has to buy the condominium to live there. They have several levels of care. You can step up if you need a different level. My friend is independent in a way since they have their own condominium, but they have care coming in and they have a cafeteria that they go to for meals. In the independent living they also have houses. It's a great community with a lot of retired doctors and nurses, and they have a clinic that deals with specialist doctors, geriatric meds, and Alzheimer's and dementia. Doctor Noel is the physician in charge and they're an excellent community. Anybody with the money and resources should check it out. Everybody can go to their memory clinic and get assessed since they take Medicare and charge a deposit. They have activities. Like a lot of the guys would get together and do woodworking. With the virus, they're pretty well-cloistered. Apart from the cafeteria, they also have a dining area with formal dining. The food is good, and gourmet.

Provider Response

Nancy

Givens Estates' rooms were like apartments. They had a swimming pool, fitness room, outdoor eating area, and classes going on. It was an excellent and wonderful place. It's huge and like being in Disney World or a fancy hotel. We had lunch and it was excellent. The staff was very helpful and loving. They had artwork of the residents on display from a recent art class, and it was beautiful, like an art gallery. They allowed the residents to plant their own flowers outside on the grounds.

wow1234

This place is elegant but it should be for the insane prices they charge. The food is decent, but only about 1 meal a day is included in the monthly cost. My parents live in one of the independent apartments and are relatively mobile. There are not enough maintenance workers to do all the work needed and no one to help the residents with small chores like moving heavy items. There are not generators for each building so when the power goes out (which it has twice in the 6 months they have lived there) if they need power for something like oxygen or Cpap machines, they are out of luck. I expect more from a place that costs as much as this place does

robottechie

Over priced and seems like they don't get back in touch with you quickly enough. Keep your parents at home, if possible.

Carol457587

Givens Estates is really nice. It is up on the hill. There's great walking trails. There is good group bird watching. It's really pleasant. There's the university neighborhood plus the city neighborhood, so there's kind of a mixture of café and restaurants and export and import stores. They got pretty sophisticated staff too. The place is relatively expensive, so there are a lot of people with really lively minds, and they're physically lively too. They have class, which is a very challenging kind of sophisticated dance class, so it is for people want to stay in shape. There is more than just balance for the elderly there. There's real program going on. People I talked to likes bird watching walks; they're active, and they're probably in their 80s.

Beth on waiting list

I'm on the waiting list. I recommend taking their tour, where you can talk with residents. I know several people who love living there. If you're low-income, need to be careful to check their rules. Some residents are in a special program for lower-income folks, plus Givens is building a separate facility near Gerber Village, which has grants for helping retirees who have less income.

Kiki1

My parents moved to Given Estates two weeks ago. It’s a very clean and pretty facility that didn't smell like a nursing home. The rooms are nice, and the food is very good. They have physical therapy, activities, card games, and book clubs. We like the staff so far. I love the food; we were able to eat with my parents. The common areas are nice, very clean, and beautifully decorated with fireplaces. However, my parents complained that there wasn’t a bank on site, so they have to drive to the bank. They wish that it was closer to stores, so that they shop.

Michael0604

My mother and I went down to North Carolina last week, and she has found a place and is all set. Givens Estates is the name of the place. They just seemed very helpful, and everyone who lived there really liked it. It is a beautiful place. So far, everything looks great. Everything appears to be very good. They seem to really care about the people and would go out of their way to make sure everything is the way that people wanted it. They had plenty of activities and lots of nice grounds.

sunnysouth

We were looking at this place and since it is advertised as being built by the Methodists and supposedly for 'low income', we did not expect to see a monthly fee in the thousands of dollars. What type of a low income person do they think could afford this? Apparently it is overpriced like everything else in the "San Franciso of the south.'

Caring88515150

I liked Givens Estates a whole lot. It was one of those communities where you could advance to what you needed to once you were in the facility. If you were in the assisted living and needed to go to skilled nursing, you had the option to do that. They had a lot of amenities there as well, and it was a beautifully well-kept area. The people there were very nice, very helpful, and very friendly. I thought the only problem with that was that it was a one-room thing instead of apartments. So, it was a lot smaller, and that's not quite as amenable to what my mother was looking for.

Caring Girlfriend

Givens Estates offers the same services as with the other CCRCs I visited. They have many levels of care. People living there are well attended to on all levels. I have had friends there. Their food is fine. They have a number of activities for their residents. I would recommend this place.

Mrs. P1

Givens Estates is a very nice place. My friend can do whatever she wants. She can take exercises in an indoor pool, get massages, go to lectures, she can go to dances, and even walk her dog. There's tons to do and she can do as little or as much as she wants. She can live there for the rest of her life. If anybody wants to move there in retirement age, it's a good place to be. It's expensive though.