Rayne Guest Home announces name change

“The Ellington” — a name as elegant as the facility and its residents’ rooms.
Effective Jan. 1, 2018, Rayne Guest Home will be known as The Ellington.
“The name really captures the ambience of the new facility,” said Ricky Bonin, administrator. “Everyone here is really excited about the new construction and we can’t wait to show it off to the area.”
The $8.5 million expansion project, which will more than double the size of the current facility, will add 46,430 square feet of “new construction” to the facility with 19,277 of the existing building to under go extensive renovation.
The front entrance — to Robert Street — will be demolished. That area represents the earliest years of the facility.
The Guest Home, when completed, will offer 80 beds in semi-private rooms and 40 private rooms, a huge increase in the number of private rooms available.
There also will be 1,512 square feet of additional dining area and more than 3,000 square feet of new living room space, a movie theater, additional space for activities and a new physical therapy area.
“The overall theme is to make the Guest Home more modern and less like a hospital facility,” Bonin said, explaining that, when the facility was first constructed in 1956, “it was modeled after a hospital.
“Who wants to spend extended amounts of time in a hospital setting?”
One of the areas to be expanded will be the physical therapy unit, an area that is more-utilized than most people realize.
“This industry — and us along with it — it moving more toward a rehabilitation-type industry,” Bonin continued. “The majority of people we take in end up going home. Not many people know that.”
When completed, The Ellington will include more “community areas,” a much larger dining area, a larger — and expandable — chapel, and a theater.
“There have been times when there’s been a family sitting across from my desk and they ask, ‘Do you mean we would pay the same here as we would at that new facility right down the road?’ — because, remember, we don’t set our prices, the state does — and they take off,” he said. “Not any more.”
The new name is the result of a community-wide contest sponsored by the nursing home.
“You wouldn’t believe the number of entries we received — or some of the suggestions we got,” said Bonin. “That’s why it took so long for our board of directors to select just the right name.”
Bonin explained that the winning entry was submitted by “a person that wishes to remain anonymous.” The administrator explained that this anonymous person also asked that the $500 in prize money be donated to a local “good cause.”
“We’re looking at a few projects right now and will make a decision soon,” he said.
Rayne Guest Home / The Ellington, the largest non-government employer in the city, is licensed for 120 beds and, “for the first time in a long time, we have a waiting list,” Bonin said.
Residents are expected to begin moving into the new section of the facility around the beginning of December, at which time demolition / renovation of the existing building will begin.
“We’re looking at completion somewhere around March or April,” Bonin said.