The Fountains at Millbrook

The Fountains at Millbrook is beautiful and a great value. So much is included in the monthly rent! The staff are so happy and helpful. Overall a great retirement community - service, food, activities, transportation, housekeeping, staff, maintenance. So happy we found this place!

I highly recommend this facility. From the first phone call I made to the sales director, I have been treated with professionalism and kindness. I had to find a facility for my mother in law. From the first moment she got there she loved the place. She would call me at night and thank me for finding her such a great home. She was able to keep her cat and dog, go to lunch and dinner or, if she wanted, to eat in her apartment. The maintence department took care of her fencing needs, hung her pictures, came back to move them and never questioned a demand she might have made. Whenever she had a medical emergency, no matter how trivial, she was attended to quickly and with great compassion. I was kept informed on her progress of her integration with the other residents and the lifestyle The Fountains promotes. When moms health started to fail the Home Health nursing department supplied us with everything she needed. She had wonderful round the clock care, they worked closely with HOSPICE to see mom through her final days. When she passed, some of the staff were crying as they all offered their condolences. I am so glad that Mom was at a location that was warm in their compassion and so professional. They helped our family so much. To me this shows the great core culture of this facility. Finally I am very happy and satisfied that our family made the correct choice in putting our loved one here.Kenneth Mathiasen COPM, MBA

The grounds are gorgeous. It's pretty far out in the country so best for someone who likes living that lifestyle (which we do). Surrounded by farms, cows, horses. It's 4 miles to the little town of Millbrook which is adorable. There is a small grocery store there. For other shopping, or a larger supermarket, you need to travel about 20 minutes. If only the rest of the property was as nice as what mother nature provided. We did the complete tour of the facilities and main thing I will note is this place is getting really run down. The cottages they showed us had chipped and peeling paint on the outside brick. Not just a little bit, the entire sides of buildings were peeled off. There were cracks in the sidewalks. The doors to the storage areas were rusted. The interior layouts all differ but the kitchens were very outdated. The flooring and bathrooms are outdated as well (lots of linoleum and formica). The cottages could use a renovation. Some of the cottages had an air conditioner in the bedroom and no where else. Some of the cottages share a laundry room that you must walk outside to get to. The washer and dryers are mismatched and very old. I'm not sure if the laundry rooms have heat in them but that would get awfully cold in the winter if they don't. They looked more like a storage room they converted to a laundry room. Just wasn't nice at all. The landscaping around the cottages doesn't seem to exist unless the person living there has made the effort. Several were surrounded in nothing but weeds. The gym is small. Just one of each type of each equipment. The photos on the website make the dining room and the cafe look a lot better than they do in real life. The nice plants on the table you see in the photos and the lovely red napkins are not there. The little cafe isn't the quaint little country market it appears in the photo. The table tops and the chairs are badly chipped. The lovely front porch you see in the photo is run down with chipped paint and mildew. It does not look out onto a view, you are looking at the entry driveway parking lot and the apartments and the community building. There were not flowers on the porch because it sits in the shade. It is also a good 20 miles down mostly 2 lane winding roads to a full service hospital in Poughkeepsie. The front desk is not staffed 24/7. There is someone there until about 11pm and then, if there is an emergency, you have to call and let the phone ring at the Reception desk and then it rolls over to the guard. It takes at least 10 rings until it rolls over to the security staff. That is a long time if you are having a heart attack or have fallen and in pain. The onsite activities are very limited but you can check that out yourself. No bocce court, putting green, shuffleboard, horse shoes, croquet. They do have a pool table and a Wii game console. They do have good transportation services into towns for shopping and doctors appointments. I have nothing personally against this place, I really wanted to love it because the grounds are so nice and the cottages so unique to find in independent living. I'm trying to give an honest review. It just looks like Watermark isn't putting any money at all into this place to make it nice or only the bare minimum. You can of course visit yourself to see that everything I'm stating is factual. If none of this matters to you, and you are happy with just having 200 beautiful acres surrounding you, then this would be ideal. The people we met, both staff and residents, were very warm and inviting.

I have to agree with the other reviews I've seen. We did the tour of the cottages with our friends who were looking. I noticed the same issues as the other reviewers on many of the other sites have stated. It's just run down. Easy enough to go see for yourself if you are looking in this area. It looks like no money is being put into this place to update it or keep it nice. We found the photos to be misleading. It may have looked like that at one time, but not anymore. If you don't mind chipped furniture, chipped paint, cracked sidewalks, and appliances from 1970, then this review won't interest you. If beautiful grounds and nice people are all you are looking for, you could very well love this place. My friend's wife took one look at those shared laundry rooms in the cottages with one old yellow washer and one white mismatched dryer from maybe 1980 sitting cock-eyed in a storage room and said no way. From what we saw, there were no outdoor onsite activities going on either. Or any available. Something that let's you get a little sunshine and exercise to stay active and healthy (they have an indoor pool table, a Wii bowling game?, a poker/card club, movie night - all things your can see on their activity list - all sedentary indoor activities). No shuffleboard court, bocce, putting green, tennis courts, pool....anything for quality of life. How about a greenhouse for the gardeners in the community to use on all that land? Wouldn't it be nice if the residents could grow some organic produce for the restaurant and have fun doing it? Surprisingly enough, other than a little patch of land in back of the apartments, there wasn't even a large community garden. In farm country! Independent living should keep you active. There wasn't even a nature trail to have a pleasant walk on those beautiful 200 acres. As mentioned in other reviews on other sites, the 24/7 onsite staff is misleading. There is someone at the desk until 11pm then you have to let the phone ring at least 10 times till it rolls over and starts ringing the security guard. How expensive would it be to have someone staff that desk after 11pm? That's one of the reasons why you are living in a place like this, so that someone is there if something happens. They sure need a better system than that. The gym was really tiny with only 1 piece of equipment each. Put 5 people in there and it would be overcrowded. This really did look like an outdated 'retirement home' to us. I'm sure some people love it and overlook these things or they've been living there since formica was in style and before front loading HE washers came out 15 years ago, so it all looks fine to them. The apartments did look nicer than those cottages. Those were the most run down with weeds everywhere around them. Reminded us of the old motels you see up by the lake off season. Nothing against the folks there, everyone was very nice. It's all what you are used to I suppose. However, for the money this costs....you can find better. Will try to drive by there in the next few weeks and add some photos to this post if that might save someone the tank of gas to go see it.