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I know it’s true,” John Fogerty sang in 1984, “because I saw it on TV.”
It’s been over half a year now since ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition swooped into the small town of Milbridge, on the coast halfway between Ellsworth and Machias. The news crews and television cameras have gone. No signs point the way. All is quiet on the Wyman Road, which winds south of Route One along the shore of Narraguagas Bay. Still, there’s no mistaking The House That Television Built.
But so-called “reality TV” is like an iceberg: What’s visible is only a tiny fraction of the bulk beneath the surface. The house that went up in a week while the TV cameras rolled is actually the result of months of planning and preparation, driven by the dictates of drama as much as the needs of a fortunate family.
It’s not so imposing when approached from town, but from the other direction the generous size of the five-bedroom, four-bath house becomes apparent. The blue building is easily the most modern structure in the neighborhood. Brittany Ray, Ron Smith, and their three children will tell you that their new home remains a popular topic of local conversation, and that people slowing down to take a look is still a several-times-daily experience. “You have to make sure that everybody has their pants on,” Ray says, “because people can see right in.”
The Ray-Smiths admit to being hurt by some of the criticism that they saw on various websites that carried news of the project. “The people from the show prepared us for it,” Ray says. “They told us at the start, no matter what, that there would be negative stories. It happens with every show they do.”
“Nobody ever said anything directly to us,” Smith says. “And there were always four or five positive comments for every negative. Still, it’s human nature to be sensitive, especially when people criticize you without knowing the facts.”
“I think we’d be the first to say that there are more needy people, right here in Milbridge,” Ray adds. “But they were real clear. It wasn’t about what we thought. They had already made their selection.”
The Ray-Smiths were chosen in part because of their careers as educators. Brittany Ray, an English teacher and now the guidance counselor at Narraguagas High School, was named Maine Teacher of the Year for 2007. Ron Smith is a technology integrator, working with the laptop program in school districts throughout Washington County. They are also parents. Their daughter, Bayley, almost 12, is in sixth grade; their son Thomas, 9, is in third grade and is challenged by a high-functioning form of autism. Their other son Joseph, whom they call “Jo-Jo,” will be 4 in April. The couple is in the process of adopting a baby girl from China. They are waiting to hear from the Chinese government on a timetable, but the baby’s room in the new house is furnished and ready for her arrival.
A prime attraction for the producers was the ghost of Augustus Mitchell, Brittany Ray’s great-great-grandfather, which purportedly haunted the old house. The spirit, which Ray says is real but has never been threatening, became the primary focus of the episode.
“They were looking to do a teacher story, and they found me on Google,” she says. “Apparently the only thing they connected with Maine in Hollywood was Stephen King. When they found out the house was haunted, they thought they’d hit the jackpot. They had their teacher, and they had their Stephen King angle.” The family had been hard-pressed to make the needed repairs on the old house, which had been in Ray’s family for generations.
Though the producers knew they wanted to build the Ray-Smith house, they kept the family in the dark until the last possible moment. While representatives of the show went about the necessary business of securing local permits, lining up contractors, and approving architectural plans, the Ray-Smiths were told only that they were one of five finalists in Maine. On the morning of the “door knock” that begins each episode, the family huddled inside their old house behind closed drapes with a woman from the show, who instructed them to make as much noise as possible so they wouldn’t hear the TV crews pull up.
Much of the preliminary design work was done by Mike and Daisy Wight of Broughman Builders, the Ellsworth firm selected as head contractors for the project. The door knock was scheduled for September 9; the Wights received their first call from the producers of Extreme Makeover on August 3.
“The first thing I did was call all the contractors, plumbers, and electricians I knew,” Mike Wight says. “Before I could say yes, they had to say yes.”
“We had 24 hours to rally the troops, so to speak,” his wife, Daisy, adds.
Whenever there was a conflict between good design and good television, the tube won. “We redrew the house 20 times,” Wight says. “We’d come up with a design, and they’d say, ‘We’ve done 110 shows but we’ve already done that.’ It became a bigger and bigger issue as time went on.”
Something else casual television watchers might not know: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is powered by volunteer labor and donations. The show does not pay anybody who works on a project, nor does it cover any of the cost of materials. “We paid our guys for a regular work week during the construction,” Wight says, “but they worked twice as many hours.” He estimates that he got 13 hours of sleep during the seven days, all of which he spent at the site. “I didn’t see my kids for a week.”
But the draw of being involved in a national TV show proved irresistible. Support poured in, even as rain poured down for four of the seven days of construction. Hundreds of large and small businesses throughout New England contributed labor, material, food, and equipment. “We found great people that we never knew existed, and we’re using some of them today,” Mike Wight says.
Other volunteers were touched by Thomas’s story. Downeast Horizons executive director Anthony Zambrano joined three DEH program participants at the site assembling hard hats for some of the construction workers. “We have a boy with autism, too, and we wanted to do what we could to help,” says Ralph Allen, who, with his wife, Tracey, owns Allenfarm Fence Company of Hermon, which built much of the outdoor fencing and deck work.
While many companies cooperated on the building of the house, the weather did not. “You would jump off the porch so you could work, and you’d sink right up to your knees in mud,” Allen recalls. “It was really hard to coordinate everything. When we were doing the front porch, everybody was going in and out of the house constantly. You would have to move so they could film something. Still, nobody was mad, nobody was grumpy.”
Mike Wight agrees. The television crews and the actors “were normal people,” he says. “For the most part, they were very nice. The security people were fantastic. The camera crews were great. They all enjoy their jobs and are very good at them.”
But can you really build a house in a week? Yes and no, Mike Wight says. The compressed time frame meant that multiple projects went on all at the same time, and crews from different companies had to work right on top of one another. Safety was always a concern; several members of the TV crew spent the entire week making sure that workers didn’t run into one another. “We were late, but not so late that the family couldn’t come home at the scheduled time,” Wight says.
“The day the family came home was absolutely beautiful,” Daisy Wight recalls.
But while the sun shone on the “Move that bus!” moment, making for good television, the house wasn’t yet finished. Several more days passed before the new house became a home.
The Ray-Smiths spent the week in Orlando, Florida, on a Disney World vacation paid for and conducted by representatives of the show. On the day the TV crew arrived in Milbridge, they presented the family with a new set of luggage and gave them 10 minutes to pack. For the next seven days, they lived under the show’s strict supervision. A guide met them at the Orlando airport. They weren’t allowed to use their cell phones or the Internet. The shots of the family reacting to the demolition of their old house were staged several days after the fact.
According to 12-year-old Bayley, the VIP treatment did have its advantages. “We didn’t have to wait in line for any of the rides at Disney World,” she says, with a touch of embarrassment.
The family returned to Maine the following Saturday, September 15. “We weren’t allowed to talk to anybody or read any newspapers, so they put us in a tiny hotel between Bucksport and Ellsworth so nobody could find us,” Ray says. The motel screened any calls, and a guard from the show stayed in the next room.
After seeing the new, not-quite-finished house for the first time as the cameras recorded their open-mouthed astonishment, the Ray-Smiths were taken back to the motel. They spent all day Monday taping interviews in Milbridge, wearing the same clothes they’d worn the day before. On Tuesday, crews from the show began loading up equipment and leftover materials to be carted to the sites of future shows. “That tile over the sink was in several shows that aired right after ours, and the wallpaper was used in a build in Hawaii,” says Ray.
Meanwhile, a substantial “punch list” of uncompleted details remained for the contractors. “Building it that fast, there’s no way it can be my best work,” Mike Wight says. “Our crew was down there for most of the following week.” By Friday, everyone was gone.
“We had to get right back to work and school,” Ray says, “which may explain why I don’t have any memories of September or October.”
The Wights were in the process of building their own house in Ellsworth when Extreme Makeover called. They put that project on hold, along with all their other jobs. “All our clients were very understanding,” Mike Wight says. “But the day that I told them I’d be back to work, every one of them called. Their houses were a month behind.”
Though it was only September, the Ray-Smiths had to honor the part of the contract that called for them to leave the house exactly as it was until the show aired, which they thought would be in January. Nobody could come in. On Halloween, the family handed out treats on the front porch.
When the show aired on January 6, the family finally got to meet all the volunteers at a reception held at the Holiday Inn in Ellsworth. They’ve hosted a couple of open houses since, to benefit the Milbridge Library and the Milbridge Historical Society. But they haven’t made many changes to the house. The small library is still filled with reference books, encyclopedias, and classics from the Oxford Press donated for the show. The family’s own books, and most of their old belongings, remain in storage.
The Ray-Smiths seem unfazed by their brush with stardom, and still a little surprised at all the hoopla that goes along with being on national television.
“It took an awful lot of time to get 30 seconds of TV,” says Bayley, whose telegenic personality captivated the audience at the show’s airing in Ellsworth. “They would take an hour to set up a shot.”
“Everything Ty Pennington says to you is scripted and piped into his ear,” Brittany reveals. “That’s why you only see one side of his face. He’s not nearly as over-the-top when he’s not on camera.”
Now that the dust has finally settled, the family is enjoying the wide-screen TVs, new computer, and new appliances that came with the new home, as well as the generator that kicks on automatically when the power goes out. They also love the four bathrooms, the workout room in the garage, the open floor plan, and the custom-designed bedrooms. The solar-powered hot water heater on the roof helps defray some of the increased energy costs. “Our electric bill has gone up,” Smith says. “When the kids flip a switch here, eight lights go on. We’ve replaced some of the floodlights with CFL bulbs.”
The added energy costs of the larger house will be offset for at least the first year by a donation from the R. H. Foster Company, which is providing a year’s worth of oil and LP gas. “It was something we wanted to do,” says Roy Boothby, convenience retail marketing manager for the Hampden-based company, which also coordinated food services for the construction crews at the site. “We originally started in Machias in 1959, and we still have a pretty good presence up there. It’s our quote-unquote backyard.”
Though the house is ultramodern, vestiges of the old remain. The wood surrounding the living room fireplace was salvaged from the old house. Some of the old beams were also used in Bayley’s room. An outdoor fireplace in the backyard was made from granite from the old foundation. A pump organ that belonged to Ray’s great-great-grandmother was put on the second-floor landing. And the portrait of old Augustus Mitchell, whose spirit the couple says has moved comfortably into the new house, was placed over the stairs by Pennington as the final scene in the show.
Near the front door hangs a small painting of the old house, which still holds a special place in 4-year-old Jo-Jo’s heart. “He still can’t watch the demolition of the old house without getting upset,” his mother says. “Jo-Jo, what happened to the old house?”
“It broke,” Jo-Jo replies.
“Who broke it?”
“Ty,” he says.
But even Jo-Jo is likely to grow into an appreciation of the new home, once the novelty wears off. Living in an old house can get, well, old. “Not having to deal with frozen pipes and flooded basements is really nice,” Smith says. “Everything in this house is so much nicer than anything we would have had,” Ray adds, “but it still fits Maine.”
And the home has already brought the family closer together.
“We didn’t cook in the old house as a family,” Ray says. “Now it’s very common. I never would have had a mixer, for instance. Now we make homemade cookies. I think we’re probably eating more desserts.”
It’s been over half a year now since ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition swooped into the small town of Milbridge, on the coast halfway between Ellsworth and Machias. The news crews and television cameras have gone. No signs point the way. All is quiet on the Wyman Road, which winds south of Route One along the shore of Narraguagas Bay. Still, there’s no mistaking The House That Television Built.
But so-called “reality TV” is like an iceberg: What’s visible is only a tiny fraction of the bulk beneath the surface. The house that went up in a week while the TV cameras rolled is actually the result of months of planning and preparation, driven by the dictates of drama as much as the needs of a fortunate family.
It’s not so imposing when approached from town, but from the other direction the generous size of the five-bedroom, four-bath house becomes apparent. The blue building is easily the most modern structure in the neighborhood. Brittany Ray, Ron Smith, and their three children will tell you that their new home remains a popular topic of local conversation, and that people slowing down to take a look is still a several-times-daily experience. “You have to make sure that everybody has their pants on,” Ray says, “because people can see right in.”
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The Ray-Smiths admit to being hurt by some of the criticism that they saw on various websites that carried news of the project. “The people from the show prepared us for it,” Ray says. “They told us at the start, no matter what, that there would be negative stories. It happens with every show they do.”
“Nobody ever said anything directly to us,” Smith says. “And there were always four or five positive comments for every negative. Still, it’s human nature to be sensitive, especially when people criticize you without knowing the facts.”
“I think we’d be the first to say that there are more needy people, right here in Milbridge,” Ray adds. “But they were real clear. It wasn’t about what we thought. They had already made their selection.”
The Ray-Smiths were chosen in part because of their careers as educators. Brittany Ray, an English teacher and now the guidance counselor at Narraguagas High School, was named Maine Teacher of the Year for 2007. Ron Smith is a technology integrator, working with the laptop program in school districts throughout Washington County. They are also parents. Their daughter, Bayley, almost 12, is in sixth grade; their son Thomas, 9, is in third grade and is challenged by a high-functioning form of autism. Their other son Joseph, whom they call “Jo-Jo,” will be 4 in April. The couple is in the process of adopting a baby girl from China. They are waiting to hear from the Chinese government on a timetable, but the baby’s room in the new house is furnished and ready for her arrival.
A prime attraction for the producers was the ghost of Augustus Mitchell, Brittany Ray’s great-great-grandfather, which purportedly haunted the old house. The spirit, which Ray says is real but has never been threatening, became the primary focus of the episode.
“They were looking to do a teacher story, and they found me on Google,” she says. “Apparently the only thing they connected with Maine in Hollywood was Stephen King. When they found out the house was haunted, they thought they’d hit the jackpot. They had their teacher, and they had their Stephen King angle.” The family had been hard-pressed to make the needed repairs on the old house, which had been in Ray’s family for generations.
Though the producers knew they wanted to build the Ray-Smith house, they kept the family in the dark until the last possible moment. While representatives of the show went about the necessary business of securing local permits, lining up contractors, and approving architectural plans, the Ray-Smiths were told only that they were one of five finalists in Maine. On the morning of the “door knock” that begins each episode, the family huddled inside their old house behind closed drapes with a woman from the show, who instructed them to make as much noise as possible so they wouldn’t hear the TV crews pull up.
Much of the preliminary design work was done by Mike and Daisy Wight of Broughman Builders, the Ellsworth firm selected as head contractors for the project. The door knock was scheduled for September 9; the Wights received their first call from the producers of Extreme Makeover on August 3.
“The first thing I did was call all the contractors, plumbers, and electricians I knew,” Mike Wight says. “Before I could say yes, they had to say yes.”
“We had 24 hours to rally the troops, so to speak,” his wife, Daisy, adds.
Whenever there was a conflict between good design and good television, the tube won. “We redrew the house 20 times,” Wight says. “We’d come up with a design, and they’d say, ‘We’ve done 110 shows but we’ve already done that.’ It became a bigger and bigger issue as time went on.”
Something else casual television watchers might not know: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is powered by volunteer labor and donations. The show does not pay anybody who works on a project, nor does it cover any of the cost of materials. “We paid our guys for a regular work week during the construction,” Wight says, “but they worked twice as many hours.” He estimates that he got 13 hours of sleep during the seven days, all of which he spent at the site. “I didn’t see my kids for a week.”
But the draw of being involved in a national TV show proved irresistible. Support poured in, even as rain poured down for four of the seven days of construction. Hundreds of large and small businesses throughout New England contributed labor, material, food, and equipment. “We found great people that we never knew existed, and we’re using some of them today,” Mike Wight says.
Other volunteers were touched by Thomas’s story. Downeast Horizons executive director Anthony Zambrano joined three DEH program participants at the site assembling hard hats for some of the construction workers. “We have a boy with autism, too, and we wanted to do what we could to help,” says Ralph Allen, who, with his wife, Tracey, owns Allenfarm Fence Company of Hermon, which built much of the outdoor fencing and deck work.
While many companies cooperated on the building of the house, the weather did not. “You would jump off the porch so you could work, and you’d sink right up to your knees in mud,” Allen recalls. “It was really hard to coordinate everything. When we were doing the front porch, everybody was going in and out of the house constantly. You would have to move so they could film something. Still, nobody was mad, nobody was grumpy.”
Mike Wight agrees. The television crews and the actors “were normal people,” he says. “For the most part, they were very nice. The security people were fantastic. The camera crews were great. They all enjoy their jobs and are very good at them.”
But can you really build a house in a week? Yes and no, Mike Wight says. The compressed time frame meant that multiple projects went on all at the same time, and crews from different companies had to work right on top of one another. Safety was always a concern; several members of the TV crew spent the entire week making sure that workers didn’t run into one another. “We were late, but not so late that the family couldn’t come home at the scheduled time,” Wight says.
“The day the family came home was absolutely beautiful,” Daisy Wight recalls.
But while the sun shone on the “Move that bus!” moment, making for good television, the house wasn’t yet finished. Several more days passed before the new house became a home.
The Ray-Smiths spent the week in Orlando, Florida, on a Disney World vacation paid for and conducted by representatives of the show. On the day the TV crew arrived in Milbridge, they presented the family with a new set of luggage and gave them 10 minutes to pack. For the next seven days, they lived under the show’s strict supervision. A guide met them at the Orlando airport. They weren’t allowed to use their cell phones or the Internet. The shots of the family reacting to the demolition of their old house were staged several days after the fact.
According to 12-year-old Bayley, the VIP treatment did have its advantages. “We didn’t have to wait in line for any of the rides at Disney World,” she says, with a touch of embarrassment.
The family returned to Maine the following Saturday, September 15. “We weren’t allowed to talk to anybody or read any newspapers, so they put us in a tiny hotel between Bucksport and Ellsworth so nobody could find us,” Ray says. The motel screened any calls, and a guard from the show stayed in the next room.
After seeing the new, not-quite-finished house for the first time as the cameras recorded their open-mouthed astonishment, the Ray-Smiths were taken back to the motel. They spent all day Monday taping interviews in Milbridge, wearing the same clothes they’d worn the day before. On Tuesday, crews from the show began loading up equipment and leftover materials to be carted to the sites of future shows. “That tile over the sink was in several shows that aired right after ours, and the wallpaper was used in a build in Hawaii,” says Ray.
Meanwhile, a substantial “punch list” of uncompleted details remained for the contractors. “Building it that fast, there’s no way it can be my best work,” Mike Wight says. “Our crew was down there for most of the following week.” By Friday, everyone was gone.
“We had to get right back to work and school,” Ray says, “which may explain why I don’t have any memories of September or October.”
The Wights were in the process of building their own house in Ellsworth when Extreme Makeover called. They put that project on hold, along with all their other jobs. “All our clients were very understanding,” Mike Wight says. “But the day that I told them I’d be back to work, every one of them called. Their houses were a month behind.”
Though it was only September, the Ray-Smiths had to honor the part of the contract that called for them to leave the house exactly as it was until the show aired, which they thought would be in January. Nobody could come in. On Halloween, the family handed out treats on the front porch.
When the show aired on January 6, the family finally got to meet all the volunteers at a reception held at the Holiday Inn in Ellsworth. They’ve hosted a couple of open houses since, to benefit the Milbridge Library and the Milbridge Historical Society. But they haven’t made many changes to the house. The small library is still filled with reference books, encyclopedias, and classics from the Oxford Press donated for the show. The family’s own books, and most of their old belongings, remain in storage.
The Ray-Smiths seem unfazed by their brush with stardom, and still a little surprised at all the hoopla that goes along with being on national television.
“It took an awful lot of time to get 30 seconds of TV,” says Bayley, whose telegenic personality captivated the audience at the show’s airing in Ellsworth. “They would take an hour to set up a shot.”
“Everything Ty Pennington says to you is scripted and piped into his ear,” Brittany reveals. “That’s why you only see one side of his face. He’s not nearly as over-the-top when he’s not on camera.”
Now that the dust has finally settled, the family is enjoying the wide-screen TVs, new computer, and new appliances that came with the new home, as well as the generator that kicks on automatically when the power goes out. They also love the four bathrooms, the workout room in the garage, the open floor plan, and the custom-designed bedrooms. The solar-powered hot water heater on the roof helps defray some of the increased energy costs. “Our electric bill has gone up,” Smith says. “When the kids flip a switch here, eight lights go on. We’ve replaced some of the floodlights with CFL bulbs.”
The added energy costs of the larger house will be offset for at least the first year by a donation from the R. H. Foster Company, which is providing a year’s worth of oil and LP gas. “It was something we wanted to do,” says Roy Boothby, convenience retail marketing manager for the Hampden-based company, which also coordinated food services for the construction crews at the site. “We originally started in Machias in 1959, and we still have a pretty good presence up there. It’s our quote-unquote backyard.”
Though the house is ultramodern, vestiges of the old remain. The wood surrounding the living room fireplace was salvaged from the old house. Some of the old beams were also used in Bayley’s room. An outdoor fireplace in the backyard was made from granite from the old foundation. A pump organ that belonged to Ray’s great-great-grandmother was put on the second-floor landing. And the portrait of old Augustus Mitchell, whose spirit the couple says has moved comfortably into the new house, was placed over the stairs by Pennington as the final scene in the show.
Near the front door hangs a small painting of the old house, which still holds a special place in 4-year-old Jo-Jo’s heart. “He still can’t watch the demolition of the old house without getting upset,” his mother says. “Jo-Jo, what happened to the old house?”
“It broke,” Jo-Jo replies.
“Who broke it?”
“Ty,” he says.
But even Jo-Jo is likely to grow into an appreciation of the new home, once the novelty wears off. Living in an old house can get, well, old. “Not having to deal with frozen pipes and flooded basements is really nice,” Smith says. “Everything in this house is so much nicer than anything we would have had,” Ray adds, “but it still fits Maine.”
And the home has already brought the family closer together.
“We didn’t cook in the old house as a family,” Ray says. “Now it’s very common. I never would have had a mixer, for instance. Now we make homemade cookies. I think we’re probably eating more desserts.”
