Nurses Registry co-founder, owner, Lennie House dies

Lennie G. House, who owned the Lexington-based health-care company Nurses Registry, has died.

House, 72, died overnight Monday after collapsing at his home in Scott County, according to the Scott County coroner's office.

House was familiar to many people in Central Kentucky from his company's television commercials, which usually ended with House saying the motto "One call does it all."

House was a native of Nicholasville who studied at Eastern Kentucky University before launching a sales career at Hilti International, where he quickly became one of the company's top sellers of construction tools.

House went on to lead companies that were among the first to bring pagers, beepers and cell phones to the area.

House and his wife, Vicki House, bought a small answering service for doctors and nurses in 1983, and Nurses Registry was born.

The company provides a range of in-home health-care services, including private-duty nursing. It also offers home medical equipment and supplies and temporary staffing for nursing homes, physician offices and other settings. The Nurses Registry family of companies had revenues of $40 million a year by 2007, House said in an interview at the time.

In 2011, the U.S. Justice Department alleged a violation of federal rules in a civil complaint that Nurses Registry used cash and tickets to concerts and University of Kentucky basketball games to induce doctors to refer patients to the nursing agency. The complaint named House and his wife.

The company's attorney denied the allegations in a statement, saying that the physician referrals were a result of the company's quality health care, not kickbacks.

The federal complaint grew out of a civil lawsuit filed in 2008 by two former Nurses Registry employees, Alicia Robinson-Hill and David A. Price, alleging Medicare abuse. The federal government later took over the case, which is pending.

House was an original investor in the Lexington Horsemen indoor football league, which started in 2003, and for a time was its sole owner, supporting the team from his own pocket. He turned the team over to a nonprofit organization in 2008, but the team folded the following year.

House was an avid sportsman who enjoyed fishing and bird hunting, said his longtime hunting buddy, John Kerr.

"What a character he was," Kerr said. "He always added a little extra charisma to the hunt."

In addition to his wife, House is survived by a son, Lindsey Monroe House, and two daughters, Lyn Wesley Wood and Erica Laine House.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at Christ Church Cathedral on Market Street in Lexington. Visitation will be from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Kerr Brothers Funeral Home on Main Street.

This story was originally published February 24, 2015 at 10:33 AM with the headline "Nurses Registry co-founder, owner, Lennie House dies ."