Saratoga Retirement Community Profile: Contracts, Care & Costs

If you’ve owned your Saratoga, Los Gatos or West San Jose home for 25 or 30 years and you’re starting to think about a place that could carry you through every stage of aging, Saratoga Retirement Community is probably already on your radar. If you’re comparing senior living options in Silicon Valley, this is a different model from a 55+ community where you buy a home, since you sign one contract on one campus and your housing and access to future care are handled together. This profile covers the whole picture: how the campus and care levels are organized, what daily life looks like, what the entrance fee and monthly fees mean in practical terms, what questions to ask about the contract, and how selling your house fits into the plan. In the tour video above I walk the grounds, and I’ll refer back to a few things you can see there.

The Campus and Who Runs It

Saratoga Retirement Community (most people call it SRC) sits on a 37-acre campus at 14500 Fruitvale Avenue, near the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The historic white mission-style main building you see in the featured photo, with its twin bell towers and red tile roof, has been a local landmark for generations. The community is a not-for-profit with deep roots in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and it’s owned by Odd Fellows Home of California, a nonprofit that dates back to 1896. The original Odd Fellows Home building dates to the early 1900s and is listed on the City of Saratoga’s Historic Resources Inventory, so it’s a real local landmark rather than a marketing detail.

There’s some recent news families should know about. In June 2026, Transforming Age, a nonprofit senior living organization, announced that it had taken on third-party management of SRC through its business services affiliate, while ownership stays with Odd Fellows Home of California. The same announcement mentioned a groundbreaking on a $101.7 million campus expansion to modernize facilities and add new residences, with the community currently described as having 337 residences. If you’re touring in the next year or two, ask how construction will affect the part of campus you’d live in and which new residence types are planned.

According to the community, the expansion broke ground in spring 2026 and will add 52 new apartments in 15 floor plans, ranging from roughly 1,072 to nearly 2,000 square feet, with completion expected in spring 2028 under the city-approved master plan.

Location Within Silicon Valley

Saratoga sits on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley. It’s quieter than San Jose or Santa Clara without being isolated, since shopping and medical offices are a short drive away and family can reach the campus easily from Highway 85 or Highway 17. Grocery stores, pharmacies and shops line Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road and nearby Los Gatos. The climate helps too: warm, dry summers and mild winters, with most of the rain in the cooler months, so the walking paths and courtyards are usable year-round. If you want to know the town better, my post on living in Saratoga, California covers the neighborhoods and daily life.

Four Levels of Care on One Campus

SRC is a continuing care retirement community, which California also calls a life plan community. The idea is that you move in while you’re independent, and if your health changes later, the next level of care is on the same campus rather than across town. For couples, that can be the whole ballgame, since one spouse can stay in independent living while the other gets more support a short walk away.

Independent living in standalone cottages or apartments in the mission-style manor, with maintenance, dining and campus amenities included.
Assisted living, with 24-hour help from licensed vocational nurses and certified nursing assistants for bathing, dressing, medication management, personal laundry, safety checks and escorts to meals and activities, plus on-site physical, occupational and speech therapy.
Memory support in a secure setting for residents living with dementia.
Skilled nursing and rehabilitation in a health center licensed as a skilled nursing facility (license number 220000416) with 94 licensed beds.

The community reports that it received 2026 U.S. News & World Report Best Short-Term Rehabilitation and Best Long-Term Care recognitions. Assisted living and memory care in California are licensed as Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly, and you can read inspection reports for those levels through the state’s Community Care Licensing facility search. I’d spend ten minutes there before you sign anything.

Hospitals Nearby

On-site care covers a lot, but it’s worth knowing what’s close by for specialized or emergency care. El Camino Health has a hospital campus in Los Gatos, Good Samaritan Hospital is nearby in San Jose, and Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and O’Connor Hospital round out the options. My post on finding homes near healthcare in Silicon Valley covers this in more depth.

What Daily Life Looks Like

The amenity list is long, and it’s part of what makes the monthly fee easier to swallow when you compare it with the upkeep of a big house. Here’s what SRC offers on campus:

Indoor pool and spa, plus a fitness and aquatic center
Two dining rooms with restaurant-style meals and a private wine-tasting room
Art studio, woodworking shop, model-train room, billiards and ping-pong
Hair salon, library and a resident business center
Bocce court, koi pond, English rose garden, walking paths and fitness trails

Beyond the facilities, there’s a full calendar of social outings, educational programs, arts and on-site events. Saratoga Village, local hospitals and the rest of Silicon Valley are a short drive away, so you’re not trading access for tranquility. For someone who’s spent years cleaning gutters and managing gardeners, handing all of that off while gaining a woodshop and a pool is a pretty good trade.

Dining and Getting Around

The main restaurant serves California-style cuisine with restaurant seating for lunch and dinner and a monthly Sunday brunch, and the Cal Villa Deli handles casual, grab-and-go meals at lunch. Residents can reserve the wine tasting room for birthdays and family celebrations, which is a small detail people really seem to enjoy. Paved paths connect the cottages and apartments to the dining and healthcare buildings, with the historic main building as the central landmark, and for trips off campus residents use their own cars or local transit.

What It Costs: Entrance Fee and Monthly Fees

SRC operates completely outside the MLS market. There’s no listing on Zillow and no bidding war, and residents don’t receive a deed. Instead you pay an entrance fee, sometimes called a buy-in, that depends on the residence and the contract you choose, plus a monthly service fee. The community doesn’t publish entrance fee amounts, so you’ll need to contact the sales office for current pricing based on what’s available.

The monthly fee covers utilities, housekeeping, dining and amenities. Third-party estimates put the average monthly cost around $6,525, with a range from about $5,000 to over $7,000 depending on the residence and level of care. Many CCRCs also offer partially refundable entrance fees, where a set percentage of your payment returns to you or your estate when the contract ends, and those plans often fall somewhere between 50% and 90%.

CCRCs generally use three contract types. Type A (extensive life care) has higher upfront and monthly fees but covers most future care costs, Type C (fee-for-service) has the lowest entrance fee but charges market rates for care as you use it, and Type B (modified) falls in between. Which of these SRC offers today, and how each refund option changes the upfront price, are the first things I’d ask about.

Understanding the Contract

This is where I’d slow down and bring your adult children, your CPA and possibly an elder law attorney into the conversation. A CCRC contract isn’t a lease; it’s a long-term agreement about housing and future care, and the terms vary a lot from one community (and even one contract option) to the next. SRC has published its own articles on how entrance fee contracts and contract types work, which is a good sign, but you’ll want the actual residence agreement in hand. Here are the questions I’d ask:

Which contract types are offered right now, and how much of the entrance fee is refundable to me or my estate, and when?
If I move to assisted living, memory support or skilled nursing, does my monthly fee stay the same, rise to a discounted rate, or go to full market rate?
How have monthly fees increased over the past five years, and how will the expansion be financed?
What health and financial qualifications do I need to meet to be accepted?

That second question matters because care costs can dwarf everything else. As reported at the time of writing (last I checked, as of September 2026), SRC’s skilled nursing daily rates for the public started around $608 per day for a semi-private room and $811 for a private room, while current independent living residents moving into skilled nursing started around $483 and $655 per day, with level-of-care charges possibly added. That resident discount is one of the concrete financial advantages of joining a campus like this, but please confirm current rates directly with SRC at 408-359-3008.

California regulates continuing care contracts through the Department of Social Services, and its Continuing Care Contracts Branch explains resident rights, including the right to cancel within a set period after signing. It’s worth reading before your first sales meeting so you know what protections you already have.

What the Entrance Fee Means for Selling Your Home

An entrance fee community asks for a large sum up front, on top of the monthly fee, and for most of my clients that money comes from the house. That changes the planning in a few important ways compared with a rental community, where you only need enough to cover the monthly cost.

Move first or sell first?

Most SRC applicants need the home equity before or right around move-in. Some have enough savings to pay the entrance fee and sell afterward at their own pace, which is the most comfortable path because you’re not staging and showing a house you’re still living in. Others use a short-term bridge loan secured by the house, and some communities offer deferred or phased payment of the entrance fee, so ask SRC what it allows. If you do need to sell first, we can often negotiate a rent-back so you stay in the house for a few weeks after closing while you move.

Preparing a house you’ve lived in for decades

Longtime Saratoga and Los Gatos homes often need some freshening up to sell for top dollar. Compass Concierge can front the cost of paint, flooring, landscaping and staging with no upfront payment, and it’s repaid from the sale proceeds. If you’d rather skip the projects, an as-is sale is a perfectly reasonable choice, and I’ll show you the numbers both ways. The bigger job is usually the belongings, since you’ll be moving from a family home into a cottage or apartment, so start by measuring your new floor plan and deciding what comes with you, then let family pick through the rest before you bring in an estate sale company. My ultimate downsizing guide for Bay Area seniors walks through the steps, and working with a Seniors Real Estate Specialist helps you line up the sale with the move-in date SRC gives you.

Taxes: what helps and what doesn’t

If you’ve lived in your home as your primary residence for two of the last five years, IRS Section 121 lets you exclude up to $250,000 of gain if you’re single or $500,000 if you’re married filing jointly. In Silicon Valley, a house bought in the 1980s or 1990s can easily have more gain than that, so run the numbers with your CPA before listing, and read my guide to capital gains tax on a long-held Silicon Valley home. Prop 19, on the other hand, generally won’t help here, because it lets homeowners 55 and older transfer their property tax base to a replacement home they buy, and moving into a CCRC residence under a contract isn’t buying a home. Some families also ask their CPA whether part of the entrance fee or monthly fee counts as a prepaid medical expense, which is worth a conversation. If you’d like help mapping out the sale around your move-in date, my selling page explains how I work with longtime homeowners.

Availability and Touring

Units at SRC don’t appear on real estate portals, and availability depends on resident turnover and the expansion now under construction. Your first step is contacting the sales office to ask about open apartments or cottages and to schedule a tour. The waitlist is real, with the community reporting more than 130 people waiting at its spring 2026 groundbreaking, so don’t expect to time this the way you’d time a traditional purchase.

Who SRC Fits Best

SRC tends to suit people who value stability and don’t want to move twice, couples whose care needs are diverging, and homeowners who are ready to give up yard work and repairs while keeping an active, social life. It’s a bigger financial commitment up front than a rental community, so it makes the most sense when you have meaningful home equity and want the security of knowing where future care will happen. If you’re still healthy and independent, touring now gives you the most options, since independent living admission usually depends on meeting health qualifications at move-in.

Frequently Asked Questions

What levels of care does Saratoga Retirement Community offer?

SRC offers independent living in cottages and apartments, assisted living, memory support, and skilled nursing with rehabilitation, all on one 37-acre campus in Saratoga. The skilled nursing health center is licensed with 94 beds.

Who owns and manages Saratoga Retirement Community?

SRC is owned by Odd Fellows Home of California, a nonprofit founded in 1896. In June 2026, Transforming Age announced it had taken on third-party management of the community through its business services affiliate.

Is the entrance fee at Saratoga Retirement Community refundable?

That depends on the contract option you choose, and terms can change. Ask SRC for its current contract types, what percentage of the entrance fee is refundable, and when a refund is paid, then have your attorney or CPA review the residence agreement. With a partially refundable plan, a set portion of your entrance fee goes back to you or your estate when the contract ends, whether you move out or pass away.

Do I need to sell my house before moving into SRC?

You don’t always have to. Some residents pay the entrance fee from savings and sell afterward, others use a bridge loan or a rent-back after closing, and some communities allow deferred entrance fee payments. Ask SRC what it offers and plan the sale timeline around your move-in date.

Can I use Prop 19 when I move to a CCRC like SRC?

In most cases it won’t apply. Prop 19 lets California homeowners 55 and older transfer their property tax base to a replacement home they purchase. Moving into a continuing care residence under a contract isn’t buying a home, so it usually doesn’t apply. The Section 121 capital gains exclusion on selling your current home still may.

How much does skilled nursing cost at SRC?

At the time of writing, public skilled nursing rates were reported to start around $608 per day semi-private and $811 private, with lower rates for current independent living residents of about $483 and $655. Confirm current rates with SRC at 408-359-3008.

What is the average monthly cost at Saratoga Retirement Community?

It depends on the residence and contract. Entrance fees aren’t published, but third-party estimates put the average monthly fee around $6,525, with a typical range of $5,000 to over $7,000.

Do residents own their homes at SRC?

No. The entrance fee and monthly service fee secure your residence and future care, but they don’t convey a deed.

How long is the waitlist for independent living, and how does the deposit process work?

It depends on turnover and the floor plan you want. The community reported a waitlist of more than 130 people at its spring 2026 groundbreaking, and the 52 new apartments due in 2028 will add capacity. Contact the community directly for deposit amounts and current timelines.

What are the age and health requirements to qualify for independent living?

Applicants need to meet the community’s age minimum and baseline health and financial requirements. Contact the admissions office for the exact criteria.

How does Saratoga Retirement Community compare to other CCRCs in Silicon Valley?

It stands out for its historic 37-acre campus and its cottages, while peers like Vi at Palo Alto operate on a Type A model with published fee ranges. See how Silicon Valley CCRCs compare on costs and contracts, and my side-by-side of The Villages vs. Saratoga Retirement Community.

If SRC is on your short list and you’re wondering how the house sale and the entrance fee fit together, I’d be glad to sit down and sketch out a timeline with you. Call me at 408-413-3087 or book a call with me, and we’ll figure out the order of operations that works for your family.

This article is for general education only. Please confirm pricing, availability, contract terms and care details directly with Saratoga Retirement Community, and remember that I’m not an attorney or CPA, so review legal and tax questions with your own advisors.

Saratoga Retirement Community Profile: Contracts, Care & Costs