Me with Tessa’s family.
As much as I wanted to run and hide, I had to get Ransom Gillis to the finish line, which meant filming our very public open house. I don’t allow photos during my open houses because I stage minimally. Props and small furniture can get knocked over or broken, or grow legs and walk away. That means I don’t have lit candles, flowers, or draped towels during an open house with hundreds of people walking through. It’s not safe or smart. On the day of the open house, we had a line of thousands. The money collected at the open house was going to help Tessa Prothero, the seven-year-old daughter of one of my go-to guys, Bobby Prothero. Tessa has stage 4 neuroblastoma and is one brave, tough little girl (we filmed her family’s house in season seven). She stood right next to me in front of the house to welcome the visitors.
The real estate developer’s PR representative showed up with a group of press photographers in tow, and walked up to the door past all the people waiting in line. I stopped them.
“Whoa, wait. Please don’t take interior photos,” I told them. “I’m not done with the house yet.”
This PR guy looked right at me, then back at the press photographers, and said, “You can do whatever you want in this house. You don’t need to listen to what she says. Take any photos you want.”
It was the last straw. The press had been beating me up about everything, including how permits hadn’t been pulled correctly, when I’d had nothing to do with the permits. Again, I didn’t own the house. This was my hometown, where before Ransom Gillis, I could do no wrong. Suddenly, the press was all over me and my credibility was in question.
I felt so violated. To add insult to injury, I was told that before I could open the doors, I had to do a press conference. There were people staring at me from the lines, ninety-year-olds and eight-year-olds alike who had waited hours to see this house. Most important, Tessa was on the front porch with her family, and the PR reps wanted all of them to wait longer? In what some would later call an unprofessional move—but what I refer to as a single act of common human decency and courtesy—I said, “Hell, no.” I went out and addressed the thousands of people who truly mattered, and I introduced the brave little girl by my side. Not one “executive” came over to Tessa and talked to her. The real estate developer had leveraged the angle that they were “sponsoring” the house, when in fact they owned it. That got the big press buzz. Meanwhile, not one news outlet ran the story on how the crew was volunteering and how we were raising money for this little girl fighting cancer. I couldn’t help thinking, well . . . you can figure out what I was thinking.
Even worse, the press that did come out was critical, one article saying that the interior of the house was “underwhelming.” Not a surprise, given that it wasn’t staged as it normally would have been for a photo shoot. For the next few weeks, headlines like “Nicole Curtis Unhappy with Media” kept appearing. People who didn’t know the truth were calling me a design hack and a diva. It hurt, but I knew the truth deep down. I was so thankful that, as at all my open houses, so many wonderful people came out to support us, waiting in line for hours with no complaints. I have no regrets about doing what I did. No one has ever called me a kiss-ass or a fake. I live life like my grandmother taught me to, looking out for the people first, protecting and helping. Overall, that open was our best ever!
Me at the Indian Lake Road house as a child (top row). The kitchen during foreclosure (center row). I restored the kitchen to look as I remembered it (bottom row).
But I was determined to go out on a good note with Ransom Gillis. The Thursday after the open house, I threw a big party for all the guys who had worked on the mansion and their families. They had given so much. We all had. Ransom Gillis was supposed to be a three-week project and it had turned into so much longer. All of us who actually worked on the house had paid the price. We had missed birthdays, weddings, and holidays. We had missed so much. I stated as much in a news release and again, the critics came out in droves. Isn’t that what I’d signed up for? Hadn’t I been paid for that? I just shook my head. I was so proud of the work that everyone had done on that house. In the end, we celebrated a lot of hard work, and it was the best time we had on the whole project. Good, bad, or indifferent, the Ransom Gillis mansion renovation was a success.
Shortly thereafter, it was time for my grandparents to fly back to Florida. I drove them out to the house and we filmed them walking through for a few minutes before we left for the airport. My Gram was so radiant, complimenting everything and sharing laughs with my crew like she always did. And Gramps finally understood why I had done that house. It was simply my gift to them. They loved it. My Gramps even wound up out front, hanging up the American flag and singing “God Bless America.” Everyone had asked why I had pushed myself with everything going on in my life to get this house done so fast, but deep down I had a sinking feeling that it was now or never if I wanted them to see the house completed.
My Gram and Gramps both turned ninety while we were renovating the house. The perfect gift? A 1976 Lincoln like the one they used to own. It’s now parked in the garage at Indian Lake Road.
Gramps hugged me tight and said, “This is great, Pickle.” After so many years, it seemed perfect that he’d use his childhood nickname for me. The story goes like this: As much as he protested his seventeen-year-old unwed daughter getting pregnant, after I was born, my Gramps would take me everywhere with him. At the bank one day a woman said, “She’s so cute. What’s her name?” He said, “Huh. Can’t remember—we call her Pickle.”
Standing there at that moment, in front of the house that really defines me, with my infant son in my arms, my grandparents by my side, it felt like I had finally come full circle in my career. After all these years of rehabbing other people’s homes, resurrecting other family stories, I had rebuilt my own. It was a homecoming. So much of what happened in the summer of 2015 drove home how different a house and a home are. Ransom Gillis was just a great big house with no anchor, no person who desperately wanted it rebuilt for the stories the original structure told. For me, that left it a cold collection of lumber, metal, wires, and porcelain.
The Indian Lake Road house was, on the other hand, all about people. It was my grandparents. It was the younger me, running to find salamanders or hide in the red barn. It was rich and more than its bones.
If I’ve learned anything in twenty years of doing renovations, it’s that the best houses are homes. Think about it. A home is where you live; it’s your sanctuary. A house is just a structure, but a home is another member of the family.
Me and my beloved grandparents on their last visit to Indian Lake Road.
The house is completed, and that gut feeling was, unfortunately, right on the money. My beloved Gram was hospitalized before my grandparents could come back to Michigan. I took a few months off and spent it at her bedside. I would just lie there with her, holding her hand and trying to be brave. My little boy celebrated his first birthday in her hospital room and she had a big smile, saying, “There’s my baby.” A few days later, my strong-willed grandmother, who swore that she just wanted to make it to her seventieth wedding anniversary, woke up for a few moments as a priest gathered us together to bless my grandparents’ long marriage. Two days later, she went home to heaven with my Gramps on her right and us kids lying in her bed with her. Nothing prepares you for that. There’s a lot that can be said about me, but I’m most proud when people tell me that I remind them of my Gram. She overcame so many challenges, and so have I, whether in my personal life or with the houses that I restore. Where is my life headed now? Who knows? But I’ve got my boys and my dogs, and I have the ability to handle anything that comes my way.
I’ve saved a lot of homes, but most certainly they have also saved me. From the first to the most recent, they have taught me respect and understanding. As my Gram always told me, things made with love and worn with life are always better than new.
A happy day for this mama: me and my two boys together.
Acknowledgments
There are so many people who helped make this book possible.
To all my fans, you crazy Rehab Addict addicts. Thank you for the love; you rock.
To all the members of my crews and their families, including our hundreds of volunteers. Seriously, my houses would have never been finished without your time. Thank you! And to Leif, thanks for being commander in chief.
To my production teams, thank you for giving up eating and sleeping. To Andrew, Christina, Klang, Dave, and Jose, yeah, I want that shot redone.
To the police, firefighters, paramedics, and civil servants. Thank you for always coming to our rescue.
To the men and women of our armed forces and their families. The flags at my houses fly proudly in honor of your sacrifices.
To my life changers: John Kitchener, Mary Kay Reistad, and Steven Lerner. Thank you for believing in the tiny blonde who said, “I save old houses.”
To my team at Flutie Management: Robert Flutie, Maryann Flutie, Shab Azma, and Danielle Iturbe. Thanks, but get me out of this Ritz!
To my book team: Judy Pray, Lia Ronnen, Sibylle Kazeroid, Zach Greenwald, Yeon Kim, Barbara Peragine, Mura Dominko, Nancy Murray, Allison McGeehon, Lauren Noess, and Chris Peterson. Thank you for doing the book “my” way.
To my wonderful friends and family who got me through all of this whether you cooked me dinner, walked the dogs, held the baby, or just took my hundreds of phone calls. Thank you.
To Ethan and Harper. I love you and you make me so very proud.
A few of our “crew” pictures through the years.
Do you still want more? Visit NicoleCurtis.com
Nicole Curtis
Nicole Curtis is the host of the HGTV and DIY Network megahit show Rehab Addict, which has been on the air since 2010. Nicole, a native Michigander, was born and raised in a small town outside Detroit. Nicole has spent more than 20 years working in construction and preserving old homes. She has gone from struggling single mom to host of a hit television show and has inspired people across all ages and demographics to find the courage from within to follow their dreams.
Copyright © 2016 by Nicole Curtis
Photographs courtesy of the author, except for those on pages 6 (all), 65 (bottom), 68 (bottom right), 72 (right), 87 (right), 100 (right), 108 (all), 110, 120 (both), 122 (both), 126 (both), 128 (both), 133 (left and right), 145, 152 (top right and bottom), 153, 154, 155, 186, 213 (top row right), 221, and 240 by Lauren Ariel Noess
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced—mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying—without written permission of the publisher.
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Published by Artisan
A division of Workman Publishing Co., Inc.
225 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014-4381
artisanbooks.com
Artisan is a registered trademark of Workman Publishing Co., Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son, Limited
This is a work of nonfiction. However, the names and identifying characteristics of some persons have been changed to protect their privacy, and dialogue has been reconstructed to the best of the author’s recollection.
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