Stonebridge - Monroe, NJ

Stonebridge is a beautiful community, welll kept, great amenities, the homes are gorgeous and the residents are friendly and helpful! We have been here for 8 hrs and love it!

We have be residents at Stonebridge for over three years, and I still can not get over how friendly EVERYONE is here. The best neighbors in the world! Before deciding to move I was worried that living in a 55+ community would be like "high school", but was I ever wrong. My neighbors and friends are there for me when there's something going on, yet I have no problem striking out on my own. It's really been a joy.

Just moved in and love our new home. Activity director at the clubhouse has been very helpful. Everything has been fine with house and appliances. People we have met so far have been very friendly. Great place for long walks. Farm land and larger homes surrounding the site so area looks safe from overdevelopment. New Monroe senior center is right up the street and we are convenient to major highways which is great especially since turnpike completed the widening project.

Loving life here at Stonebridge, it's a wonderful, well kept community with terrific residents and beautiful homes and grounds.

Does anyone think it strange that Stonebridge is the ONLY community on the 55+ website that is blighted by a couple of disgruntled residents????

My husband and I moved to Stonebridge over 6 years ago and we are very happy here. Our home is roomy with a convenient layout. We have met many nice people here and enjoy using the clubhouse, especially the indoor pool. The move here has been a good one.
Having come from Basking Ridge, we find shopping much more convenient here and the easy access to the shore is so much fun.

Reading some other reviews, I don't think it is a fair knock on our community to complain about spiders and wind. It is windy all over Monroe because it is a flat, open area. This is our second experience with new construction and spiders, crickets, etc. are part of the deal when ground Is disturbed for new construction. All of that subsides after a while.

I have been a resident of Stonebridge for 6+ years and felt compelled to respond to several of the comments posted. Lennar offers many different floor plans that are well priced and include things that other builders nickel and dime you for such as rocker switches, recessed lights, fireplaces and more. The people here are wonderful, friendly, caring and understand the meaning of the word neighbor. Shows have been excellent and well attended. The area is quiet without lots of fast food restaurants, big box stores and traffic.
To the person who posted last...you saw the quality you were buying and you saw the area before you bought. There are higher end stores and restaurants but they are not around the corner. When you get 500+ people together in a room for a show, they may make some noise and even sing along with the entertainer because they are enjoying themselves. Dust and insects are a temporary problem due to construction. Yes, there may be issues with your house after you move in but that happens with every builder. None of them are perfect. I hope you will have a better experience with your next home.

We've been here at Greenbriar Stonebridge since 2009 and absolutely love it! The clubhouse is so beautiful and we like that the community is gated for privacy. Everything is really well maintained and we enjoy using all the amenities. Our house was a great deal and we've only made a few minor changes like new carpets in the bedrooms and we had our kitchen cabinets painted.

I did a lot of research before purchasing a home in an adult community, and I'm very happy with my home. True, there isn't fine dining right down the street, but in exchange we have peace and quiet in a beautifully maintained community. I'm really happy with the location so close to the highway so we can easily visit family and friends.

We were in the first round of couples to move into Stonebridge. Looking for a supportive, active community with amenities, was our goal. We have been living here for 8 years and love it. Sure, little things come up but that happens anywhere. We love our life here, have made many friends and enjoy the many activities we are involved in. No builder is perfect. The houses are beautiful and you cannot find a better group of residents. For the complainers, please GROW UP!! Smell the roses while you can!!

Lennar is inconsistent in how they fix problems. They will ignore a request ( mostly) fix something when forced or fix something if you have an attorney. Homes are OK. HVAC is marginal, plumbing is marginal, paint is washable (washes off). Location is great.

Buyer Beware!

Stonebridge is ALL about giving great first impressions: large clubhouse, large houses with large windows, pools, etc - but after 2 years we have found the quality of our house and appliances get low grades. Its "largest clubhouse in NJ" is a lot of empty, unused space - but, yes it IS large. The indoor pool was closed ALL last winter - supposedly from hurricane damage - but why did it take so long to repair? The small movie theater was closed for months last year because of a mold condition - wand was also very delayed in being repaired.

There is no cafeteria or food service of any kind. The outdoor pool doesn't have enough chairs - we ended up having to bring our own!

The "entertainment" offered is infrequent and sadly of a very amateur nature - it will not satisfy anyone who enjoys attending professional events.

There is plenty of very basic shopping (chain stores and restaurants) available within 12 miles, and lots of pizza and Chinese takeout close by (nothing is walkable) - but nice restaurants are farther away accessed by dark roads.

Stonebridge has been a major disappointment.

We were hoping Stonebridge would be a wonderful, active retirement community for us where we would have no or little house repair and would have easy access to a variety of entertainment - but we feel our retirement money has been very poorly invested here.

I regret buying here. I moved from a golf course community 4 miles away and there was never the wind that I encounter here! The houses are expensive and poorly built, unlike the house I moved from which was built in 1993. The clubhouse is too big and things are always broken or being repaired. The monthly fee is too high for what you get. I will be moving long before the 23 years I lived at my prior HOA.

My husband and I live in Monroe's Stonebridge but we are searching for a new community to move into. I feel compelled to provide a more realistic description of the Stonebridge community than the one advertised on the Lennar website. I hope people searching for a 55+ new home will be able to get a better idea of what Stonebridge is really like in case it may save them the frustration we felt after moving in. I wish someone living in Stonebridge had posted some honest information before we bought.
The immediate attraction of the Stonebridge houses is obvious: brand new, spacious homes. There are also some obvious drawbacks: no choice in selecting granite, tiles, cabinets, or carpet, and a lack of close-by restaurants, stores and other attractions. We were aware of these things when we bought our house. But it is what we didn't expect that was so disappointing.
We found the homes and lifestyle were not anywhere as appealing as what they advertise. Lennar seems to try to present a much more glamorous and rich image than what they actually offer, with workmanship that is pretty at first glance but soon proves to have a variety of problems when you move in.
The homes, in our estimate, are of lower-end construction. We have had problems with cracked and warped walls, flaking paint that rubbed off if you brushed against it, missing caulking around tiles, fake-wood floors that scratch easily. Many of the residents we speak to have had similar problems. The bath and kitchen tiles look like the cheapest ones you see in Home Depot. The carpet is of the lowest quality and doesn't seem to have any pad under it. When we called for repairs (to their poor workmanship) during the first year here, when they did make them we were told they are done "as a courtesy to the homeowner". We do not consider repairing poor workmanship a "courtesy", we believe it is an obligation! It was all too obvious that the representatives Lennar sent to homes to check regarding repair calls had been given the directive to have Lennar accept no blame for any poor work.
Some neighbors have had even more serious problems in their new homes with plumbing, electricity, leaking roofs and especially dangerous, some fireplaces going on by themselves! After the one-year warranty, most repair costs are not covered by Lennar. Construction of new houses here is moving at a faster and faster pace so we expect problems in the newest houses will only get worse.
Other than the house itself, the property has its own problems. There is a nearly constant wind in the area and it covers the houses with dust so we have to have power washing and window cleaning done regularly. The wind blows so hard sometimes that it blew our patio furniture off our patio occasionally so we had to anchor the furniture with sandbags!
The garden soil is solid clay and impossible to plant in. We often see some ponds with floating plastic bags and other garbage that stays for days or even weeks. Some ponds are currently covered with algae that in addition to being unsightly also looks like mosquito breeding grounds. (By the way, there are very large scary looking spiders all over this area, and they do get inside the houses!) Instead of responding to residents' complaints, the management company that is supposed to be responsible for the common grounds has a nonresponsive, confrontational and often very nasty relationship with residents.
Entertainment wise, we have attended many clubhouse events since there is very little else in the immediate area, but events are few and pretty run of the mill. At concerts the noise level of groups of people talking loud all during the concerts makes it impossible to hear much of the music or singing.
So when you see the appealing Lennar ads and visit the beautifully decorated model homes at Stonebridge, also be aware of the real deal here as you compare Stonebridge to other communities.

Frustrated with Stonebridge