Rutledge Home continues meeting community needs with expansion

Cheryl Hentz

Contributor

June 23, 2025

CHIPPEWA FALLS – For more than two decades, Dove Healthcare-Rutledge Home has provided compassionate care and service to those in the Chippewa region who need assisted living or memory care. 

With the recent expansion and renovation to its third floor, Director Kena Luzinski said Rutledge Home can care for even more.

Luzinski said the expansion – which celebrated an official ribbon cutting last month – includes the opening of six new memory care rooms.

“We moved four residents internally up to the third floor and have since admitted two more up to that floor,” she said. “We didn’t want to grow overnight and have to worry about staffing or anything like that.”

Luzinski said the plan is to open another nine rooms at a later date as needed.

“We want to make sure that everything is in place as we grow,” she said.

With about 75% of Rutledge residents there for memory care, Luzinski said it’s likely those rooms will be needed sooner rather than later.

“We have some residents who may have a dementia diagnosis, but they’re still in our assisted living (section),” she said. “They’ll transition to our memory care later. Most of our residents move in with the intent of transitioning to our memory care wings.”

Luzinski said dementia has been a passion of hers for the last five years.

“Being able to be the facility that can help these residents within Dove is an honor for me,” she said.

In addition to the new memory care rooms aside, Luzinski said Rutledge also has plans for an additional 11 rooms on the first floor that can be added to the facility’s other assisted-living units as they’re needed in the future. 

“Right now, they’re being used as offices and storage, but they’re all set up with call lights, sinks and whatever else a resident room would need,” she said. “Our entire south wing is memory care, and our entire north wing is assisted living. We want to use the entire space of the Rutledge Home.” 

Going the extra mile

Luzinski said Dove Healthcare-Rutledge Home has what’s known as a Dove Nest program – extra training that care staff undertake to be able to meet residents’ needs.

“Whether it’s their care needs, their behavioral needs or just meeting their needs wherever their memory is currently at,” she said.

Rutledge Home, Luzinski said, has something they call “nest nooks.”

“Walls are decorated and set up in a way that transports dementia residents back to another time in their lives or harkens them back to what the Chippewa Valley used to, or perhaps still does, offer,” she said.

For example, Luzinski said they have a Leinenkugel nook, a Mason Shoe nook, a farm animal nook, a fishing nook, a sports wall nook, a music nook, an Irvine Park nook, a teacher’s nook and so forth. 

“(There may be) a resident who may not yet feel comfortable with us or doesn’t really know us yet, because they may not even know themselves at that time, but we know something about their history,” she said. “So, if they grew up on a farm, we can take them past the farm animal nook and start talking to them about when they were on a farm and things like that. Then they feel comfortable and feel like they’ve known us their whole lives. They may not know our name and probably don’t recognize our voice, but when we can bring up things they know about themselves or that feels comfortable to them, it helps them feel comfortable with us, and we’re better able to care for them and give them a better quality of life, too.” 

Music, Luzinski said, is huge in so many people’s lives, so every floor at Rutledge Home has a piano or keyboard on it for residents to use.

Angela Hite, Dove Healthcare’s regional director of marketing and communications, said the facility also offers a life enrichment and activities program.

“It includes all kinds of social events and outings,” she said. “Things with families, children and volunteers. It’s not just large groups or small groups – it’s individualized programming, as well. The life enrichment opportunities are a huge part of people choosing to live at Dove Healthcare-Rutledge Home.”

Luzinski said every resident in the building – whether they’re in assisted living or memory care – is permitted to participate in everything offered.

“We go to the Wisconsin State Fair,” she said. “We take them to Oktoberfest. We just had a resident go on a type of motorcycle ride. We borrow a pontoon and take them on a pontoon ride. We try to make sure every resident has some sort of activity to do.”

Luzinski said they do their best to get to know each resident so they can plan events and activities they may like.

“Dementia residents don’t always remember what happened 15 minutes ago, but they will remember a game from their childhood,” she said. “So, we try to get them to interact or participate in something like that.”

Luzinski said Rutledge Home also does a music activity with the residents a couple of times each month, plants a garden together and has a facility dog named Maggie – a poodle/dalmatian rescue that lives with her and her family and goes to work with her each day.  

“Maggie has been a blessing for us,” she said. “We adopted her from a rescue about a year and a half ago. We got her right before Christmas, so Santa brought her to the facility.”

Luzinski said Maggie sticks close by her but also wanders from room to room, and the residents frequently put out dog treats for her to find as she’s making her “rounds” to see residents. 

She said the facility also has several chickens that residents can feed and pet as they wish. 

“They’re just there for the residents to enjoy and to give those who grew up on a farm a chance to relive that part of their life,” she said. “The residents can see them right outside their windows, so they’re always checking on them and calling out their names, and the chickens come running. They’re like their little pets.”

Luzinski said Rutledge Home’s three home-cooked meals a day are planned with residents in mind.

“The Chippewa Falls area is known for pork steak and dumplings,” she said. “So, we have potato dumplings that are made with pork steak and sauerkraut. We use local vendors for our meat. Our cheese comes from a local vendor.”

Competitive industry

Rutledge Home is big and it’s old – 112 years old, in fact – which Luzinski said can seem quite daunting when you first drive up to it.

“You see the newer facilities coming out that have a central living area and then rooms that feel like bedrooms in a home,” she said. “How do we make Rutledge Home a home that’s going to compete with these newer facilities that have that type of homey atmosphere?”

Luzinski said Rutledge Home accomplishes that with the staff, the home-cooked meals, the chickens, the dog, how they decorate, the activities they do and “making sure everyone is involved.”

“We work very hard to make this a home for our residents,” she said.

Hite said it’s Rutledge Home’s philosophy of care that has allowed it to thrive and be successful even in the midst of the past 20 years of assisted-living facility growth.

“You might not find that philosophy of care at a brand-new property, because they haven’t figured it out yet,” she said.

A bit of history

Hite said the building that now houses Dove Healthcare-Rutledge Home was originally constructed between 1910-13 by Edward Rutledge, who used his private funds to build it in honor of his wife, Hannah.

Formally known as the Hannah M. Rutledge Home for the Aged, the facility opened in 1913. 

“Mr. Edward Rutledge was a visionary, and those who moved there could stay as long as they wanted or as long as they needed, under the condition they turned over all of their assets to the Rutledge Charities, a nonprofit, upon their passing,” she said.

That, Hite said, is what kept this home going.

“While they lived there, it was just communal living,” she said. “They helped care for each other. There were no caregivers – there was no Medicaid at the time, no state oversight, no DHS (Department of Health Services). That all changed in about the late ’60s and ’70s when more rules and regulations and state oversight came into being.”

At the time, Hite said Dove Healthcare only had two locations in Eau Claire, and the owner was ready to start expanding its reach into the community and serve more people’s needs.

“At the same time, Rutledge Home was being operated as a skilled nursing center,” she said. “I think Dove just fell in love with the place, its history and the people who were there, and we wanted to see it keep going. So, Dove welcomed (the facility) into the Dove Healthcare family in 2004.”

Hite said Dove operated it as a skilled nursing center, otherwise known as a nursing home, from 2004-07, when it became an assisted-living facility.

Memory care services, Luzinski said, were added in 2008. 

“I think we’re doing a very good job of carrying on the Chippewa Falls reputation of the Rutledge Home and what Dove Healthcare stands for,” she said. “At the same time, I think we’re doing a really good job of meeting the needs of the community, which is why we expanded the memory care section, because that’s more of a need now. When there’s more of an assisted living need, we’ll be able to expand to our first floor. We’re continuing to grow to keep up with the needs of the community and to provide the best quality of life that we can.”