Senior Living Operator Changes Hands After Sale, Rebranding As Better Living

A duo of senior living veterans has acquired an operating company and rebranded it as Better Living.

The new owners of the management company, Dani Merlino and Nick Merlino, acquired the company formerly known as Better Living Management Services from brothers Seth and Kyle Phillip. Now that they own the operator, the Merlinos plan to renovate its properties and further improve operations for a new generation of residents.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Along with buying the operator, Dani Merlino will serve as CEO and Nick Merlino will serve as president.

Today, the Better Living portfolio includes eight communities in Iowa, five properties in Minnesota and one in Wisconsin and averages approximately 40 units, with the smallest being 19 units and the largest community being 63 units. Nick Merlino described the company’s “sweet spot” for communities as ranging between 40 and 50 units. The communities include a standalone independent living and memory care property as the rest of the communities offer assisted living and memory care.

“That’s not to say we won’t go bigger, but we think we can best optimize at that range,” Nick Merlino said. “We’re great Midwest people taking care of great Midwest people and if we need to expand that, we will, but again, our true focus is doing things well.”

The acquisition of the management company also coincides with a renovation effort at the properties ranging between $500,000 and $1 million, Nick Merlino said, to “add curb appeal” and make the properties “the most marketable.”

In the company’s first 90 days, the Merlinos will work with the operator’s leaders to find ways to improve operations, along with identifying potential revenue opportunities with the end goal of “empowering executive directors” to make informed decisions, drive profitability and improve resident satisfaction, Nick Merlino said.

Dani Merlino brings over 25 years of senior living experience with her to her CEO role, starting as a dietary aide and later as a certified nursing assistant before stints with Lutheran Life Communities, Petersen Health Care, Provision Living Senior Communities, Five Star Senior Living and Jaybird Senior Living.

Nick Merlino started in the senior living industry as an accountant for a boutique management company based in the Midwest, before joining Jaybird Senior Living as an accountant and later working at Prestige Care, having most recently served as COO of Senior Housing Consultants.

The pair told SHN their passion for senior living drove them to acquire the Better Living management platform, and prompted their effort to rebrand the company with a shortened name, a new website and logo.

“But the rebrand goes further than that,” Dani Merlino said. “We want to have a focus on culture and mission and it’s our mission to love. That’s what we do. We want to make people’s lives better, so the rebrand is also about a culture change.”

As part of the rebrand, Better Living is launching a branded memory care program called Better Days based on the psychological theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, that motivating drives for people can be organized into levels from basic needs to self-actualization.

“We need to focus on food and safety and shelter and meeting those needs before we can elevate programming,” Dani Merlino said. “It’s our responsibility and duty to help them achieve that self-actualization at the top of that pyramid.”

Senior Housing Consultants contracted Better Living last year to operate some of the properties owned by the firm, with Nick Merlino playing an outsized role in “helping them get off the ground,” before bringing in Dani Merlino, who has an independent consulting business focused on sales and marketing.

During a recent conference, the Merlinos discussed the idea of purchasing the management company from the former owners—and the rest is history, they said.

“This is our passion,” Dani Merlino said. “This is what we care about and what we want to do, so through that conversation, it just started making sense with our ambition to do this long-term.”

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