Five communities, three states, one organization
Quillbrook Communities is a not for profit senior living system. We were started in 1961 by a group of families who wanted somewhere dependable for their parents to grow old. Sixty five years later we run five communities across North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina, and the reason is still the same. Each community keeps its own character and its own staff. What they share is one board, one set of standards and one promise about what happens when life changes.
Illustrative mock data and artwork. Hand drawn for this sample website. No photography.
Illustrative mock data. Invented figures for a sample website. Residence counts by community are 412, 206, 318, 174 and 96, which total 1,206.
Our communities
People rarely shop for a system. They shop for a place. Use the two filters to narrow by state and by the level of living you need now, then read what each community is actually like. If you are not sure which level applies, start with the whole list and call us.
The oldest campus and the busiest, a walkable village of brick paths where the woodworking shop runs six days a week.
Small, quiet and close to the water, with one dining room where almost everybody knows everybody by name.
Our Virginia campus, built along a ridge, with big windows, a serious garden club and the longest waiting list in the system.
Long porches and level walkways on the coastal plain, with a memory support household built around one kitchen table.
Ninety six apartments for older adults with limited income, two miles from the home office, with a van that runs to the grocery store on Tuesdays.
No community matches both filters.
Try one filter at a time, or clear the filters to see all five. Skilled nursing and rehab, for example, is offered in North Carolina and Virginia but not in South Carolina.
Illustrative mock data. Community names, towns, telephone numbers and residence counts are invented for this sample website.
Where we are
Four of our communities sit within a three hour drive of each other, which is how a resident can move to a different campus and still be near the same family. The fifth, Quillbrook Gardens, is two miles from the home office in Stokesbury.
Swipe the map sideways to see all five communities.
Illustrative mock data. Abstract hand drawn figure for a sample website. Placements, distances and state shapes are invented and are not a real map.
Levels of living
Not every community offers every level. That is the single most useful thing to understand about a system like ours, so each card says plainly where the level is available.
An apartment or a cottage that is yours, with the cooking, cleaning and repairs handled if you want them handled. Most people move in while they are still driving and still busy. The honest reason to come early is that it is easier to make friends and easier to plan.
Help with the parts of the day that have become hard, such as bathing, dressing or managing medications, in your own apartment with staff nearby around the clock. It is not a hospital and it is not a nursing home. Most residents still come and go as they please.
A smaller, secured household for people living with Alzheimer's disease or another dementia, with staff who work the same neighborhood every shift so faces stay familiar. Days are built around ordinary things: meals at a shared table, music, laundry to fold, a safe door to the garden.
Licensed nursing care, plus physical, occupational and speech therapy after a surgery, a fall or a hospital stay. Many stays are short and end with the person going home. Some become long term, and that is where our benevolent care commitment matters most.
Apartments for older adults with limited income, supported under HUD Section 202, where rent is set as a share of household income rather than a market rate. There is a separate application, an income limit and a waiting list. Quillbrook Gardens is run by the same organization and the same board as the other four.
One clinical standard, one quality committee and one set of policies across all five communities, so care does not depend on which campus you chose. If the level you need is not offered where you live, we help you move to a Quillbrook community that offers it, and your place in line goes ahead of the outside waiting list.
How it works
Two of our five communities are Life Plan Communities, which is 40 percent of the system. They use an entrance fee plus a monthly service fee. Two are single campuses with a monthly fee and no entrance fee. One is an affordable community where rent follows income. Here is the whole picture in one place.
A one time payment made when you move into independent living. It is not rent and it is not a deposit on a specific apartment. It funds your right to live there and your access to the health center for as long as you need it, at a predictable monthly fee.
This covers the things you use every month: maintenance, utilities on most plans, dining, the activity program, transportation and staffing. It changes once a year, and the board reviews the increase at a meeting that residents may attend.
At the two Life Plan communities, moving from independent living into assisted living, memory support or skilled nursing does not restart your paperwork. At Fairhollow and Lindenmere, assisted living and memory support are priced separately, because those campuses do not carry a health center.
There is no entrance fee and no continuum. Rent is calculated as a share of household income under HUD Section 202 rules, with an income limit and a separate application. It is a different program with the same owner, the same board and the same maintenance crew.
Plain warning worth reading twice: an entrance fee is a real financial decision. We ask every household to review the residency agreement with their own attorney or financial advisor before signing, and we will send the full agreement to them directly if you ask.
| Plan | Entrance fee from | Refundable to your estate | Monthly service fee from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional | $148,000 | Declines 2 percent a month, nothing after 50 months | $3,180 |
| Half refundable | $214,000 | 50 percent, so $107,000 on a $214,000 fee | $3,180 |
| Mostly refundable | $312,000 | 90 percent, so $280,800 on a $312,000 fee | $3,420 |
All three plans give the same care and the same priority for the health center. Figures are for one person in the smallest one bedroom. A second person adds an invented $1,140 a month on every plan. Illustrative mock data for a sample website.
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
Fairhollow and Lindenmere charge a monthly fee only, starting at an invented $2,740 for independent living, with no entrance fee. Quillbrook Gardens charges rent set under HUD Section 202 rules as a share of household income, so there is no published monthly figure to compare.
The Quillbrook Foundation
This is the question families ask last and worry about first. Our answer is a fund, not a sentiment. The Quillbrook Foundation holds the money that pays for benevolent care across all five communities, and the board has kept the commitment in writing since 1974.
"I moved in at seventy four and I am ninety one now. Nobody warned me I would live this long. When the money ran out they moved me to a smaller apartment and told me the rest was handled. I have never once been asked about it since."
Benevolent care is funded three ways: gifts from residents, families and team members, the endowment the Foundation has built since 1974, and an annual transfer from operations approved by the board. Residents at all five communities are eligible, including Quillbrook Gardens.
The commitment has one honest condition. A resident must have entered in good faith, managed their money responsibly and worked with us before the money ran out, not after. We would rather have the hard conversation two years early than one month late.
Careers
Senior living has a turnover problem. We are not immune to it, so we measure it and we publish what we find. Average tenure across the system is 7.4 years, and 312 of our 1,200 team members have been here ten years or more, which is 26 percent.
Three reasons come back every year in the staff survey. The first is that a system this size can move you. A certified nursing assistant at Fairhollow who wants to work in rehab can transfer to Marbury Green without starting over on benefits or seniority.
The second is scheduling that a human being made. Each community builds its own schedule, with the home office providing a float pool so that a call out does not turn into a double shift for whoever answered the phone.
The third is tuition. The Foundation pays toward a nursing degree or a therapy certificate for team members who have been here a year, and 44 people are using it right now.
Health coverage from the first of the month after hire, a retirement match, paid time off that starts accruing immediately, shift differentials for evenings, nights and weekends, and a free meal on every shift worked at every community.
Openings move weekly. These are the categories we recruit for continuously across all five communities.
Illustrative mock data. Tenure, headcount and tuition figures are invented for this sample website. 312 of 1,200 team members equals 26 percent.
Leadership
Quillbrook is governed by a volunteer board of directors drawn from the three states we serve. The board hires one person, the president, and holds that person responsible for all five communities. Every community also has its own executive director on site.
Illustrative mock content. Names, titles and biographies are invented for this sample website. Monograms are drawn, and no photograph of any person appears on this page.
Questions people actually ask
These are written the way we would answer them on the phone, including the parts that are inconvenient for us.
Yes, and it happens about twenty times a year. The usual reason is family moving to another state, or a level of care that her community does not offer. She keeps her residency with the organization, so she goes ahead of the outside waiting list at the receiving community.
The honest limits are two. The receiving community has to have the right residence available, which can take months at Pemberton Rise. And if she holds an entrance fee contract and moves to a campus that does not use entrance fees, the finance office recalculates her refund and her monthly fee in writing before anything is signed.
She stays. Benevolent care from the Quillbrook Foundation covers the gap, and last year it paid $3,940,000 for 61 residents across the five communities.
The condition is good faith. A resident has to have entered able to pay, managed their money reasonably and come to us before the account is empty. Please call the finance office early rather than late. The earlier conversation is always the better one.
No, and anyone who tells you otherwise is simplifying. Marbury Green and Pemberton Rise use a Life Plan residency agreement with an entrance fee. Fairhollow and Lindenmere use a monthly rental agreement. Quillbrook Gardens uses a HUD Section 202 lease with an income limit.
What is the same across all five is the benevolent care commitment, the clinical standards, the resident rights policy and the board that approves them.
It depends entirely on the community and the floor plan. Pemberton Rise two bedrooms have run two to four years. A one bedroom at Fairhollow has sometimes been available the same month.
Joining the priority list costs an invented $1,500 deposit, which is fully refundable until you accept a residence. Being on the list does not obligate you to move and you may pass on a residence twice without losing your place.
Nobody owns it. Quillbrook is a not for profit corporation with no shareholders. A volunteer board of directors from North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina governs the system, hires the president and approves every fee increase.
Day to day, each community has its own executive director on site, and those five report to the chief operating officer at the home office in Stokesbury.
It can, and we work against it. Each community keeps its own name, its own kitchen, its own activity calendar and its own resident council. The home office handles finance, payroll, compliance, technology and philanthropy, which are the things nobody wants their executive director doing instead of walking the halls.
Ask any community for its last resident satisfaction summary. If they hesitate, that tells you something useful about us.
Three of the five communities offer memory support: Marbury Green, Pemberton Rise and Lindenmere. Fairhollow does not, and Quillbrook Gardens does not.
If you live at Fairhollow and need it, we will help you move to a Quillbrook community that has it, with priority placement, or help you arrange care elsewhere if you would rather stay near where you are. We will tell you plainly which option we think is better for the person, not for us.
At Marbury Green and Pemberton Rise, usually yes, because assisted living, memory support and skilled nursing are all on the same campus. One spouse may move to the health center while the other stays in the apartment, a short walk away.
At Fairhollow and Lindenmere it depends on what is needed. If skilled nursing is required, that is not on those campuses, and a move to another Quillbrook community or an outside provider becomes part of the conversation.
Once a year, with the board approving the amount and at least sixty days of notice before it takes effect. Over the last five years our monthly fee increases have averaged an invented 4.1 percent a year across the system.
We will show you the actual history for the specific community you are considering. Any organization that will not show you five years of increases is asking you to guess.
It is fully part of Quillbrook, with the same board, the same maintenance crew and the same benevolent care eligibility. What differs is the program. Rent is based on household income under HUD Section 202 rules, there is an income limit, the application is separate, and there is no continuum of care on site.
A resident of the Gardens who later needs assisted living applies to one of our other communities and receives priority as a current resident.
Yes. Every community keeps a furnished guest apartment for short stays, usually two to five nights, so you can eat the food, meet neighbors and see a weekday rather than a staged tour. There is a modest nightly charge and it is credited back if you move in within a year.
Contact and visit
Call the home office and we will connect you with the right community, or send a note and a residency counselor from that community will call you back. We will tell you honestly if we are not the right fit.
Illustrative mock content. This address and every telephone number on this page are invented for a sample website and reach nobody.