HGTV spotlights Overland Park house
BY: Chris Rodgers, Staff Writer
A film crew from the HGTV show “What You Get for the Money” visited the Kansas City area in May to film six houses, including one in Overland Park.
Steve and Cyndi Reid’s house at 14032 Melrose in the Coventry subdivision will be featured in an episode originally scheduled to air this fall that showcases houses across the country in the $800,000 to $900,000 price range. The show has been rescheduled to air in the spring.
Each episode highlights six residences in one price range. The show’s Web site explains, “From a 500-square-foot urban dwelling to a five-bedroom rural house, find out what your money really can buy.”
HGTV research and casting producer Jason Mercado said the show has not featured this area before.
“We had been to Kansas, more west, and had also been to Missouri – St. Louis and Columbia – but this was our first time hitting Kansas City itself,” said Mercado, who works at High Noon Entertain-ment in Denver.
He said the show staff decides where to travel.
“We all get together and see which cities are kind of bustling and which cities are some of the most livable cities in the area, which are on the rise, which have a good kind of feel and lifestyle to them, and that drives where we go,” Mercado said.
Staffers work with local architects, real estate agents and interior designers to find house owners willing to appear on the show.
In the Kansas City area, the crew filmed six houses in six price ranges. The other five are on the Missouri side, Mercado said.
“Everybody was incredibly helpful,” he said. “It was a really smooth shoot. The home owners we profiled were fantastic and it was a really good trip for us.”
The Reids’ builder, Troy Moore of Madi Mali Homes, said the show’s staff noticed one of his houses on the Parade of Homes.
“They were researching different price points,” Moore, a custom builder, said. “I had a house for sale that was on the parade. I guess they liked the design, the uniqueness … . They got on my Web site and then called us directly and said they wanted to feature one of our homes.
“It was pretty much just dumb luck I guess.”
An Overland Park building inspector for six years, Moore said he always wanted to be a custom builder. Moore said that when he felt ready to start his business, the Reids, his former neighbors, said they wanted to build a house. Moore incorporated Madi Mali Homes in March 2003.
“The Reids were my first clients as a self-employed builder,” he said.
The three collaborated on the design of the house. Moore has degrees in architecture and construction management, Cyndi works as a real estate agent and Steve is a mortgage lender.
“They both are very well-versed in the real estate industry,” Moore said. “Me being a custom guy, they knew they would have some design freedom to get exactly what they wanted. It was definitely a collaboration.”
That collaboration led to some distinctive features, Cyndi said.
“The builder and my husband and I sat down and thought about our family and our lifestyle and built it around that. It’s a floor plan you don’t see that much, which is nice for me since I see a lot of houses every day. I wanted something a little different.”
“Cyndi wanted to use brick inside the home,” Moore said. “So one entire wall of her hearth room/ breakfast area is brick.
“Steve’s big ticket item was the garage. He wanted to have at least a four-car garage. We were able to do a two-car front load and a two-car side load, but widen the side load so he could actually pull five cars in his space.
“Cyndi wanted an upstairs laundry room, with sewing, craft (space). With Steve’s garage orientation, the living space above one of the two-car garages was her craft/laundry/sewing room. … So they both sort of won.”
Cyndi described the house’s exterior as formal French. The two-story house has five bedrooms, and three full and two half-baths.
Other design elements include a screened-in porch, and a two-story great room and foyer with a curved staircase.
Cyndi said the show’s producers did not ask the family to do anything special to prepare for the shoot.
“They wanted our house to look like it does every day,” she said. “Of course we did a lot of things to get ready. … We put quite a bit of landscaping in and put a fountain out front. We were doing that anyway, this just kind of rushed us to get that done.”
She found the shoot more involved than she expected.
“They came on a Sunday at 8 in the morning and they were here for an all-day shoot, until about 6 p.m. that night. They filmed our entire house. They filmed the family and they did some neighborhood shots. My in-laws live in the same neighborhood. They filmed them outside in the back yard with the kids. Then the whole family went to Deanna Rose (Farmstead) and they filmed us there.
“I didn’t realize how interactive it would be. It was kind of nerve-wracking.”
HGTV’s programming offers shows about interior design, home renovation, the real estate market, landscaping, and other house and garden related topics.
“I’m an HGTV junkie,” Moore said. “There are a bunch of creative people on that network.”
Cyndi said that prior to the filming she had not seen “What You Get for the Money.”
“I used to watch HGTV a lot,” she said. “I just haven’t had time the past few years with working and having three kids under age 7. But since they filmed, we tape the show and we watch it quite a bit now.”
Listed By: The Reid Team 913-568-6965 ReidTeam At ReeceAndNichols.com
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