We have chosen Merrill Gardens at Willow Glen. I've visited several times, and I'm familiar with it. It looks comfortable. It was a very good visit, the place was clean, it seemed to be well run, and it looked like a pleasant place to be. The staff was fine, pleasant, and gracious. The apartments were standard, clean, and had sufficient room for a single person. I was pleased with the effort they put into planning and maintenance.

If I can afford Merrill Gardens at Willow Glen, it would have been fine. Even their one-bedroom would have been fine, but I’d really prefer a two-bedroom, which is out of my reach. Everything they showed me was really inviting; I wanted to move right in. They gave me a whole calendar full of activities. Every day they had something going on; there was constantly something going on to keep you occupied if you are interested in doing that kind of stuff. It was very accommodating.

Merril Gardens at Willow Glen was the first one that we went to, and it was probably the smallest of the ones that we went to. I think the biggest drawback with it was that they had this underground garage on a fairly busy street, and to get out of it, you had to come up to that busy street too, so getting in and out was that bad. We did eat there, and the food was good. In general, the accommodations seemed pretty good. It was a long way for us to go over there, so it really didn't look like it was very doable. I would rate it about a three mostly because of the parking difficulty. That was a little bit of a problem. I guess the other thing was that it was right downtown, and I didn't like that either.

I live in Merrill Gardens now which is a very nice care home. I used to live in another care home just around the corner and we watched this being built. When this one opened, I moved over here. They have wonderful staff and have a lot of really lovely and wonderful caregivers at various levels and abilities for care giving. They have a wonderful activity director, he is magnificent. I've never seen anybody as good and better than him ever, he's the best. They don't give you very serious care, they do have a separate Alzheimer's unit for people who are pre-Alzheimer's, people on their way to serious Alzheimer's. But they do have room for people like that. The rest of us are just old and experiencing the various maladies that come with old age. It's a spotless place and four years old. It's new and well built. They take care of it and their facilities manager is a wonderful man. He's very conscientious and does a great job. They have people who come and clean your apartment once a week. They have people, if you'll want them to do your laundry they'll do it. They'll drive you places and they have all kinds of activities both in house and in the area. My complaint is that this is the third food service manager that we've had. I've been here two years and this is the third chef. The first one we had was magnificent. The next two are just terrible. The food is not great, it's not horrible but it's not great. Some people living here don't need any assistance and just live in an apartment; some people do need assistance at various levels. If you're in need of very serious assistance, then this is not the place.