Grand River Health Care Center in Rifle was recently awarded fourth place by Newsweek’s Best Nursing Homes in Colorado in 2026 for facilities with 50 to 99 beds available. 

The senior living center has also been recognized by other reports like U.S. News and World Report for making it into the top 100 nursing homes and has been a Garfield County Local’s Choice winner the past three years. 

“It’s a vibrant place with neighborhoods and community,” said Annick Pruett, administrative director of community relations.. “We’ve had people from facilities on the Front Range tour it and they say, ‘what a gem.'”

Pruett said the nursing home is designed to feel like a community rather than an institution.

“It has a bar, a cafe, a hairdresser, a bistro,” she said. “If a doctor says it’s okay for them to have a glass of wine, they can have a glass of wine.”

The center also hosts regular activities for residents. “We had the National Championship of Wiffleball — the staff playing Wiffleball,” Pruett said. “We have therapy dogs, and horses and alpacas have visited. We go above and beyond what is required.”

She said a focus on individualized care and personal choice is central to the facility’s approach. “As people get older, we fear losing choices over our own lives,” Pruett said. “Here, they’re allowed to have choices, as long as it doesn’t cause any health harm. When they want to have lunch, they have lunch.”

Pruett recalled visiting her mother at a different nursing home in California. “My mom was in a progressive retirement home, and at one point, she had to go to the nursing home part of the facility,” she said. “It had five stars, and I went there and thought, ‘Oh my God.’ My only experience has been with Grand River’s nursing home — and this wasn’t that.”

Providing these amenities doesn’t necessarily increase costs, Pruett said. “We built this place in 2020 and did a lot of research before building it,” she said. “We have multiple uses of our staff — one works part time as a hairdresser.”

“The residents are the epicenter of everything over there, and if you allow people to have choices over their lives, giving them that dignity and positive experience, they live their best lives,” Pruett said. “It’s the people, not the building. We don’t have stockholders; we have taxpayers who support us, and we want to do what’s best for residents with that support.”