Emerald Heights

Lynn

The tour experience at Emerald Heights is great. The facility was amazing. It was a gated community. It was high-class. They had a pool, a workout facility, and a great crafts room. Their apartments were amazing. They took us through all of their apartments and then their care units. So you buy in, and then you pay a monthly fee. The monthly fee stayed the same as long as you were there. And if, for some reason, you couldn't pay anymore, they had something where they would continue paying for your care because they had money in reserve for stuff like that happening in case people outlived their funds. It was an amazing facility with amazing grounds. The staff members were amazing and nice. The people we met were very nice, talkative, and friendly. We looked at the menu, and it was great.

Lyn

I liked the setting at Emerald Heights very much. It was in a residential setting and there was a check-in to drive your car in, which was important to me. One of the reasons I was attracted to that place was because I have eaten there several times whenever the group that I belong to meets there for lunch. The food was marvelous and I was very impressed with that. They had a complete gym. They had medical care on site, which was very nice, and a lovely walking trail. The staff was very helpful and down to earth. One thing they had that I had not seen in any other place was a pet bulletin board with people and their animals. It just made it home. It was lovely. They had a little store that was maintained by the residents. This was someone who lived there who was very much sold on the place, and that was a big selling point to me. The facility was well-maintained and had excellent parking space.

Cathy

We toured Emerald Heights. It's beautiful. They've got a large 35-acre property. The tour went great. My mom loved the place. I liked the setting. It's in the woods, and it's very much surrounded by nature.

Virginia

We looked at Emerald Heights. It was very good. I was very impressed. They have a very nice community, some 38 acres. It's very nicely put together. It covers the independent living type up through the memory care and nursing home. We looked at a couple of the apartments. We were interested in a two-bedroom and a one-bedroom. They also gave us a list of all the expenses. They provide dinners and lunches. The apartments are all full apartments, so they all have kitchens in them. They have a lot of activities going on. They also have quite a few exercise-type things going on. They also have groups going on. Some of them were reading, some of them were knitting, and some of them were more on woodworking. The staff who accommodated us were very good.

Arlene

Here at Emerald Heights there's 550 people that live here, and we have four degreed physical fitness people and several acres for a walk through the woods every day. I don't think there can be many facilities that are better when it comes to physical fitness. I was taking 13 classes a week before the corona hit. We have 30 different classes a week that people can choose from and we have four degreed physical fitness people. Besides that we have the trip and event girls who do a great job in putting together trips and events. With the corona it's different. However, they have extra movies on and different activities to keep us busy. Then we have the in-house TV and we have 38 acres here to walk on. This is the CCRC. My husband is in the skilled nursing wing. There's memory care and assisted living too. The staff and residents in that wing are over 300 people. I knew this because they did a corona test and that's how many tests they did in that wing. We have a high morale here. The residents here feel like they are respected by the staff and the staff feels respected by the resident. Our apartment is only 904 sq. ft. but we have two bedrooms, two baths, and a living room and a kitchen. Our fees are not exorbitant like they are in these family homes, the fees are exorbitant; here they are not. I would be very curious if you could find anything that goes near what Emerald Heights has to offer. The food is absolutely exquisite. We have lots and lots of choices that we can make. During this coronavirus, we also have what they call a grab-and-go. It's a refrigerator with a window and then we can choose the food in there if we want. They are already packaged and you can put them in the oven for two to three minutes and then you can get your full meal. You can also choose from the specials or you can choose from the wide variety of other food. They have quite a number of people that work in the dining room and the kitchen, so the restaurant is absolutely exquisite. We all have to eat in our rooms now by ourselves of course. We go and take out. We order our food in the morning. We have, I think, four vans and two buses that takes us to our medical appointments in three different towns around here. The vans would also pick up residents' orders from the department stores in the area, so I just don't know what else more anybody can do for seniors that is not done here. The staff loves us and they come to work for us, they don't come to work for them. Same way with maintenance. We have good maintenance crew and they all want to help us. No matter what the problems, they're out to help us. I don't see where we can find a better place. The food is tasty. We have a sister campus which is about an hour and a half away, the chef here is also in charge of the chef down there. You could not have a better restaurant in my opinion. We have a guardhouse and it's manned all the time, 24/7. We have gates and right now it's manned differently. We only have one way to come in and we drive in, we have to stop at the lobby, go in and have our temperatures taken, and then we can go and park our car. Anybody coming in off campus can't, no visitors are allowed. Visitors come, but they just have to drop off everything at a table we have set up. They drop off what they want to and they drive off. You might think it's expensive, but this area is kind of a high-priced area. There are stories I hear about these family homes. I know somebody that pays $12,500 per month to live in a home. A friend of ours also pays $9,000 a month to live in a home. I think there should be regulations because I think that's just out of bounds to be charging that kind of money. I pay about $6,000 a month. Here, for couples, once you go over at skilled nursing, the only extra charge is for supplies and medicine and the government requires three meals a day, so I pay only about $1,000 more for my husband to be in skilled nursing and this, for me, is reasonable.

Provider Response

Sid

Emerald Heights was quite expensive, and there's a very high buy-in to begin with. It was about three years ago that I was there visiting friends. Everything there was quite nice, I did eat in the dining room, the food was very nice, a very nice selection, and everything was very high end, but very expensive. I have friends living there that have a two-bedroom unit classified in independent living, they have to pay upfront in the beginning with no rebate, it's $477,000 just to get in, and for the two of them for the monthly charge it would be in excess of $5,000.

Provider Response