ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, September 28, 1996 TAG: 9610010024
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: BOB THOMAS ASSOCIATED PRESS
A quiz: What is the highest-rated series on public television?
``Masterpiece Theatre''? No.
``Barney''? Wrong.
The winner is ``This Old House.''
For 18 years, the series has torn apart and put back together old dwellings, to the delight of millions of American do-it-yourselfers.
The project for this season, scheduled to begin today: a weatherbeaten home at Nantucket, Mass., built 109 years ago with wood from old ships and old homes.
``We decided on Nantucket, partially because it's an islandwide historic community, partly because it's picturesque, and partly for sentimental reasons,'' says Steve Thomas, host of ``This Old House'' for eight seasons.
The sentiment involves Norm Abram, master carpenter and construction sage who guides Thomas through the problems and solutions of their projects.
``Norm's first project as a general contractor was on Nantucket,'' Thomas says. ``In a sense, it was going back to the roots of `This Old House.'''
``The people of Nantucket have done a tremendous job in preserving what buildings were left and what was built subsequently,'' Thomas observed. ``As a result, Nantucket is an extremely charming place, with a real sense of its past and a great unity in its architecture and its sensibility.''
The house chosen for the project has a link to Nantucket's decline as a maritime center and whaling port in the last century. A disastrous fire in 1846 led to a shift of maritime activity to New Bedford.
Despite its recycled origins, the home has had no apparent improvements since its original construction. It had accommodated nine people with one bathroom.
Russell Morash, who created ``This Old House'' as well as Julia Childs' cooking shows and ``The Victory Garden,'' selected the Nantucket house along with producer Bruce Irving.
``All of us walking through the building for the first time had the sense that this was going to be an all-or-nothing proposition,'' said Thomas. ``That's often true of old houses. There's almost no middle ground. It's like `partially' redoing your kitchen; it is very tough to do.
``Either you don't touch it at all, or you rip it right back to the studs and put in all new systems: heating, cooling, electrical, plumbing. That's what happened in this case. There was no way to do a partial makeover of it.
``Structurally it was in trouble, partly because of being built of recycled material. The building needed to be expanded a bit. While the foundation and a lot of the exterior framing are the same, all the floors and the roof and framing are new. It's virtually a new building in an old shell.'' The project budget: $250,000.
Does the new building retain the essence of the old?
Thomas cited an old joke: ``This is my grandfather's ax; my father replaced the handle, and I replaced the head.'' He concedes that some critics claim extensive renovation is really new construction.
``But the house sits on the existing foundation, the exterior shape is the same,'' he said. ``In some cases, we are restoring original features that had been removed over the years. The front door was originally a double door, and we found those doors in the basement.''
Thomas, his wife, Evy, and their son live in a 19th-century house in a seaport town near Boston. It's surprising to learn that he grew up south of L.A., in Manhattan Beach, where it's unlikely you'll find even a half-century-old house. He studied philosophy at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., became a woodworker and began his first home renovation in 1974.
You might expect ``This Old House'' to attract a largely male audience. But Thomas says surveys indicate the audience is 47 percent women. PBS reports that the show is broadcast 570 times a week on 315 stations, reaching 98 percent of TV households. Tapes of old shows also appear in syndication on commercial channels.
The audience surveys don't estimate how many children watch.
``Some parents have come up to me and said, `We started watching the show because our kids watched it,''' Thomas reported. ``It's a show that embraces many generations. We have people from 4 to 94 watching the show.''
``This Old House'' airs Saturdays at 1:30 p.m. on WBRA-Channel 15.
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. The Bentley family looks at a post-renovation modelby CNBof their Victorian house, which will be the featured project this
season on ``This Old House.'' color. 2. ``This Old House'' master
carpenter Norm Abram (left) and host Steve Thomas sneak in some
fishing before their latest renovation project in Nantucket, Mass.