How Ben and Erin Napier Revitalized This ‘Forgotten Florida’ City
Movieguide® Contributor
HOME TOWN TAKEOVER Stars Ben and Erin Napier turned the town of Sebring, Florida upside-down in Season 3.
“When you live in Mississippi, you grow up going on vacation to Florida, that’s the beach,” said Erin. Sebring “is not theme parks and it’s not the beach. It’s something else,” but it’s got its own charm.
The small town is known for its citrus farms and its NASCAR track.
“I read about the racetrack and that a lot of teams train there,” Ben said. “I know some NASCAR guys, so I called one of them and he was like, ‘Oh yeah, we go there for road training.’ I said, ‘Can you tell me anything about the town?’ And he said, ‘I don’t think there’s a town there.'”
The Napiers call the area “forgotten Florida.”
Ben said, “It’s the vacation land that Erin and I like to visit because it’s old vacation. It’s the kind of vacation that our grandparents went on.”
“You could tell there are people who really love it and they care about it, and parts of it are doing well,” Erin said. “But the downtown, specifically, was fifty or sixty percent shuttered.”
“The things that were open, were awesome and great. And then the things that were not open had not been open in a long time,” Ben said.
The Napiers brought their two daughters along for the ride while they filmed over the span of a few months. Throughout the season’s six episodes, they makeover local homes and businesses.
Napier shared on Instagram on Mar. 9 that this season was a breath of fresh air compared to the first two TAKEOVER seasons.
“After two difficult seasons making #HomeTownTakeover with young children in unfamiliar places, season 3 felt like a homecoming. Like summer camp. I left there wanting more,” she said.
This time, the Napiers “rented a house on the lake and every day when we would come home, we would either all go sit on the pier or wade out into the water,” said Erin. “The girls would play in the sand and they felt like we were on vacation. They didn’t know any different.”
The Napiers’ main show is called HOME TOWN, which showcases their renovations in their city of Laurel, Mississippi.
“It feels like if there is anything valuable we can offer, then we definitely should,” said Erin. “We know what doesn’t work, for sure. We’ve learned that.”
Related: 5 Fun Facts About HOME TOWN’S Ben and Erin Napier
“I think a lot of towns might have the hope that they can just mimic what a different town that they like does, and that it will turn out the same way for them. But that’s not the case. And that’s an important lesson that we know how to apply: you got to be the town that you are,” she said.
Ben agrees the biggest lesson “from us doing this for all these years, is that Laurel can’t be Wetumpka. Sebring can’t be Fort Morgan.”
Erin added, “Everybody has to find their own flavor and then really sell it to the people that live there, to the people you already have.”
On Monday, HGTV shared a sneak peek of HOME TOWN TAKEOVER Season 3. The couple surprised a devoted elementary school teacher at her workplace with news that left her stunned: “We came here ‘cause we’re gonna renovate your house!” Erin told her. To which the teacher screamed in excitement.
“We want to help you and make your home a place where your proud to invite people over,” Erin said.
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