The care staff are excellent…read more The admin staff is terrible. Complete lack of communication - can't be bothered to answer the phone, don't return voice mails, don't answer emails - couldn't give a damn about any sort of customer service. Despite the brochure stating there is a 'five star chef,' burgers are frequently on the menu, and other items are completely uninspired. Housekeeping needs to be reminded about the basics, doesn't engage any common sense or initiative, frequently leaves items/packaging all over the apartment and provides the bare minimum of service. Stay away.

The nurses and support staff here are amazing, great people, they do good work and really care…read moreabout their people. Al, the maintenance guy is the best I've met. The food is terrible, and clearly no money is put into that. The office staff are incompetent and lack any level of communication. They miscommunicated several times on very basic things, like how much rent was due, creating panic that never existed. Did your level increase, costing more? They won't tell you. The residents complain constantly about their lack of care and nothing is done about it. Fire their managers/owners and replace them with AI, they can at least communicate.

The staff is amazing , caring and cheerful! The community is…read moresurrounded by greenery. It is advertised as independent living. There are a plethora of walkers and wheelchairs. There are many activities special and regular ones. There is a nice sized indoor swimming and exercise pool.

I am a current resident at the Fairwinds. If you are looking for an independent living environment,…read morethen the Fairwinds is a really good candidate. The front desk, restaurant and bistro, housekeeping, fitness, laundry, etc. staff are really excellent. They are friendly, helpful and kind. If you require assisted living, go elsewhere! The Health and Wellness organization is a sad joke. There are no permanent nurses. The CNAs can't make decisions on their own. The leader is lousy. The organization has been a revolving door for years. My needs have recently increased and I now require assisted living services. I am both frustrated and frightened. I am looking for a new place to move my wife and I. Like many communities they emphasize their ability to scale services as residents' needs increase. Don't believe them!

The thought of having to leave my mother in the care of others was incredibly difficult for me,…read moreeven if just for a short time. That is until I met the good people at Aegis Living in Redmond. Every single staff member I have met there is filled with kindness, compassion, humor, and a strong desire to help in any way. The management went out of their way to ease my mother's fears and my hesitation. Mom has only been there a few days but she is getting the best care I think she can possibly get. I appreciate each and every person at this facility and cannot thank them enough.

My family is extremely grateful for the excellent care which Aegis of Redmond has provided for the…read morethree years my 97 year mother has been there. She is very well cared for, kept as safe as possible, and is quite content; she does not seem stressed or worried. The caring and attentive staff constantly monitor her moods and needs, and are always available to sit with her if she is ever distressed or confused. She also really likes the food- and she is quite a picky eater. Further, the staff provide transportation and assistance as needed to my mother's doctor's appointments (COVID restrictions permitting). Aegis provides a wide variety of activities to keep their residents occupied, and the staff consistently go out of their way to encourage family visits as long as it's safe. Importantly, the excellent care provided to the residents by the management and staff have kept the residents COVID-free. In sum, my family is most appreciative of the clean, safe, and caring environment provided by Aegis for our mother.

Wow, just wow! So obviously I don't live here. But I just interviewed for a job at this BEAUTIFUL…read moreplace. And it exceeds expectations for any senior living community I would hope to live at. From the resident in the lobby that I was fortunate enough to have some small talk with to the gal that runs the front desk. Everyone is so so sweet and it seems like everyone really enjoys being there.. they have a saltwater pool indoors a full physical therapy area a beautiful salon, a bar, a gorgeous dining area, and a personal party dining area and from what I could tell at five star chef because man it smelt so good. this is a faith-based program, but not exclusively. This is a new facility built two years ago. And they still have about 48% of their occupancy available. If you guys are interested this is the place you should definitely look at. No joke!!! I'm only 38, but I'm going to be keeping this one in mind for future needs. lol

From the owner: MorningStar of Kirkland offers luxury independent living for active seniors. We offer 151 spacious…read moreapartments in various configurations and luxury amenities including all-day dining, pool, spa, and fitness center, we offer the perfect home for active seniors. In our restaurants and bistro, Chefs whip up flavor profiles that delight the palette and fuel your day for adventure.

I'm disappointed that many of the other reviewers leave one-paragraph anecdotes and fail to give a…read morecomplete picture. Worse, Yelp seems to arbitrarily choose which reviews contribute to the rating and which don't. I'll take the risk and actually attempt a complete review. First, some context. There are two distinct portions of this facility to consider, with distinct amenities/features and depending on where your loved one needs to be you should evaluate them separately. The upper two floors are independent and/or assisted living facilities. The lower floor is a memory care facility. My mother moved in to the Memory Care facility after we considered many other options. From a value perspective, this was hands down the best option. I visited at multiple different times during the day and interacted with most of the staff there, and every single one of them was an outstanding, patient professional doing their best. As others have noted, for patients who should not be left alone (for safety reasons, like frequent falls) they are frequently together in an "activity room" where the smaller number of staff is capable of watching them. However, what other reviewers have NOT noted is that this is part of dementia care, establishing routines. They are not "left unattended". In my case, I knew my mother would feel more comfortable in her own room surrounded by her own things, and paid extra for someone to come just sit with her. The savings over other facilities enabled me to afford this; you just have to set your expectations on what a facility is able to do. During my frequent visits I also chatted with many of the "upstairs" residents. These were frequently well-educated people... retired aerospace engineers from Boeing. Senior management at tech companies. Master's degrees. Doctorates. They knew value and they moved here from other facilities and were happy with their choices. Sure, not everything was perfect here but they knew that, and still considered it better than other places they'd come from. Now, the reason this is 4 stars instead of 5, is that despite being full of great staff, there simply aren't enough of them. Maintenance requests have a multiple-week backlog (unless it's an emergency). It took over 3 weeks just to get a cable box/tv hookup. They need more maintenance staff. While there's always someone on call at the front desk, typically they can only write something down and call/email someone else. There's supposed to be an on-call manager every day but it frequently took me over an hour to get in contact with them. Communicating by trying to actually meet someone was rare; I got the best response via email. That's not how it should be. Not everything was perfect at Overlake Terrace, but I still think it was better than any other alternative I considered and would choose to go there again -- and would recommend it over many specific alternative places I visited. Is it the best? Probably not. Is it the best value, and flexible enough for you to translate your savings into customized care for your loved one? Absolutely.

Very small rooms, food is sub par like most assited living I think. They don't really give…read morechoices to make or get food you feel like / want to eat in your end days. They say they provide activities which they do but they are not really encouraging to get residents to participate or start new groups. Plan way ahead for more care as it is Not available within a day or two. The front end staff / maintained are very nice and try really hard to give support with out suport/ training from the head staff. It dose seem like there is a lot of turn over. There actions dont represent there words. After my Mother passed I did give suggestions for improvements but I'm not very encouraged.

This is the kind of living in downtown Bellevue I'd love have, from the valet team to the chef,…read moreservers, and management, the service was flawless. You can just feel how well the residents are cared for here--it's the kind of place anyone would be lucky to call home. I couldn't resist snapping the gorgeous views and the chef's spread for our group of CFOs... trust me, it tasted even better than it looked!

Absolutely wonderful facility!…read more Did some extensive research on options for Gma about a year before she moved in, June of 2025. Wanted a quality place where she would feel at home and be able to make friends and socialize and stay busy. The Executive Director, Madelyn, is absolutely fabulous to work with, you can tell she really cares about the residents and has a passion for what she does. The support staff and activities team are all so welcoming, smiley and overall great to be around and provide a very warm and welcoming vibe for residents and visitors! We did some extensive research into assisted living facilities and this was by far my #1 choice for reasons I will list below: 1. The amenities - activities galore and always changing, well thought out and the activities staff are friendly and are proficient in social engagement for the elderly and cognitively impaired. They do a good job of offering lots of engagement opportunities for residents. 1.a. - Addtl ammenitites - attached bistro that is open to the public, resident key required for entry from bistro into the facility. Nice for a little change of scenery 1. b. - Addtl - salon on site! Addtl fee, but there is a hair salon ON SITE ... I believe they might do nails as well but not sure... but this is SO convenient for those that don't drive and don't want to hassle with booking the resident shuttle LOVE LOVE This! & it's right off the entry way so it has a nice window view to the street 1. c. - Addtl - shuttle! The resident shuttle can be booked to take vehicle-less residents to their doctors appointments, or any other places within a 5 mile radius that they need to go! They typically have a weekly grocery trip on the activities calendar as well, so there's a pre-planned trip that everyone can go on for any grocery needs. 2. The facitity itself - always clean, very beautifully decorated, love the small touches of real flowers on the lunch tables when they have them as well as holiday decor, little snack and treats in the lounging area with some fresh water, apples and cookies, great layout of the facility, good location with a decent flat walkway right out front that residents can go for easy walks. Elavators with key required access to go to up resident floors. Location is RIGHT down the street from Overlake hospital, which is convenient, we did have to go there one evening when gma was having dizziness and vomiting and it only took a few minutes to get there. VERY convenient for healthcare reasons. 2. a Rooms - rooms are somewhat small but are perfect size for one or two people that are mostly going to be out and about in the facility the majority of the day. Each room has decent views so that is very nice (we looked at several different options of rooms before choosing). The bathrooms are large and perfect for safety for the age range of target residents. Linens and house keeping are provided once a week!!! Yay!!! 3. Care & safety - The assisted staff bring meds in the AM and they do nightly safety check rounds, call button lanyard for each resident and emergency safety pulls in each restroom in the facility and in each private resident restroom. RN on staff with 24/7 staff on site who can call the on-call RN if needed. Concierge staffed desk during the open hours of the facility, which is so nice there's always someone monitoring who is coming in, check in required with name badge. Resident key required for elavators up to floors! 4. Food & dining - the food is excellent and a well thought out rotating menu. Some of the same, regular items available, but always a new highlighted daily menu with new and exciting items. The food is clearly quality and cooked well, they didn't hire just anyone, the chef is a real chef! The dining room is open access all day from AM until dinner time, I think they close up at 6pm. 5. Staff - how the facility chooses their staff and what type of staff they have on site says a lot. All the staff during my visit seems welcoming, pleasant, smiling, helpful and overall enjoyed being at their jobs. The long term care sector can be one that is overlooked and underserved and we were not going to choose a place that hires people that don't want to be at their jobs because caring for loved ones is a very important role and this was a huge factor for us as well. 6. Price - price is expensive but honestly is similar to other facilities yet far exceeds in value above and beyond the others that we looked at. We visited this place about a year prior to moving Gma in, they allowed us to come for a complementary lunch and activity to get a feel and be shown around and all that. Mom and I visited, did the tour and looked at rooms and a later date I brought Gma for lunch and an activity. I was very pleased with the experience and recently visited Gma in Oct of 2025, a few months after she moved in, for about a week and a half. The experience was nothing less than the prior visit! A+++ would HIGHLY recommend!

My mother lived at The Terrace, which is the memory care unit, for almost 2 years until she died…read more The care there was absolutely wonderful. They were very sweet with her, and they always made her look so pretty. There were appropriate activities all day long. The residents were not forced to participate, but they were able to participate if they were interested. Covid came along after my mother moved in, so I couldn't visit for quite a while, but the activities director allowed me to email notes and photos, which she printed out for my mother to see. The nature of my mother's dementia meant that she didn't notice my long absence, nor did she notice anything else unusual. Meanwhile they just kept on taking very excellent care of her. I would highly recommend this memory care unit to anyone else looking for such care. I can't speak highly enough of it. Debbie B., Bellevue, WA

My father lived here for several years. There are many great features here for the residents, as…read morementioned in the other reviews. The food has changed: Initially the food was delicious and creative. After that chef left, it has been a series of mediocre meals. Main dishes are overcooked and under seasoned. Cooking without salt, using varieties of herbs can result in great food. This food now is blah. The joke at desert when pie is served, is the table mates try to cut the crust by stabbing it with a spoon. It is so tough, they are afraid to bite it with their teeth. The lobby is filled with expensive art, like Chihuly glass. The residents would be better served if the glass was sold and the proceeds were used to hire a great chef. The biggest complaints come when a resident needs extra services. They promise different levels of service options when you take the tour and sign the lease. They represent that they can handle needs ranging from med management, to much more assistance for people with much greater needs as their health declines. In our experience, the meds have been dispensed incorrectly several times, or not refilled in a timely manner such that none were available for a PRN. Also when people return from the hospital, the medication changes and new orders are not always done correctly. The biggest surprise was how few services they actually DO offer. If a person has poor balance and needs constant reminders to use a walker or cane, this won't happen. If help is needed getting out of bed, or off the toilet, that won't happen. This building is basically a lovely apartment home for high functioning people who can manage to live independently. Which works until there is a health event. If you spend a day and watch the elevators, and the lines of people for meals, you will notice private caregivers. Many of them. This is because if your parent has fallen, or weak after the hospital, or forgetful, they will tell you that the need for help is too great for them and they can't provide what you need. Then they threaten to discharge unless you are willing to hire your own personal care helper. That means you pay the full Gardens price , plus the price for the extra one on one private care. It's a very nice building. The director changes almost annually. Most are nice employees, good activities. Be aware that if an illness or a fall change the status of your parent's health, you will be facing much greater expenses, and a lot of extra work, if you want them to continue to live there.....

I had a big band gig yesterday at this facility and I was very impressed. Super clean, wonderful…read morecommunity, and very nice and accommodating staff. We were served food at the end of our gig and I was pleasantly surprised with the quality and options available. I didn't realize that these kind of places provided concerts for their people. So many people came up afterwards, talked about their musical experience, and said how much they loved the big band music. All in all a very nice experience.

A good friend of mine lives at Merrill Gardens…read more She is happy there. It is a great place for her to live, and has lots of fun activities. Be careful when you park there though. If you aren't careful you can get a big parking ticket. It isn't real clear about parking.