The Fountains at Millbrook

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 The interior layouts all differ but the kitchens were very outdated. The flooring and bathrooms are outdated as well (lots of linoleum and formica).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.