Less than four years after the team from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition crafted a beautiful, brand new home for a Kemah family, the house is on the market — at a greatly reduced price.
After their home was destroyed by Hurricane Ike, the Beach family— known for fostering more than 85 children over a 23-year span— was selected for the seventh season of the TV series in 2010. Larry and Melissa Beach had been living in a travel trailer with their 13 children when Ty Pennington and his crew, including celebrity volunteer Jessica Alba, built the home and revealed it on national TV on Easter Sunday.
The Beaches have been trying to sell their house since February and have reduced the price by 33 percent, from $700,000 to $535,000.
The Beaches have been trying to sell their house — located at 1013 Delesandri Lane — since February and have reduced the price by 33 percent, from $700,000 to $535,000. They say they must sell because the house is too expensive to maintain, especially now that many of their children are grown up and no longer live there.
"It is a big decision," Larry Beach told the Houston Chronicle. Beach has four children with his wife, Melissa, in addition to the 13 they adopted and dozens more they've fostered. "It's costing us 12- to 15-hundred dollars a month just in taxes and insurance. It's costing us more to live here than it would to sell it."
The two-story house — which was essentially given to them as the materials and labor were donated — is located only a few blocks from the Kemah Boardwalk. The home, which sits on a one-acre plot, features eight bedrooms — each with a different theme, including the nearby Boardwalk, four and a half bathrooms, a game room and media room.
"We are torn. The community put a lot into this house and that's really the conflict we have struggled with," said Beach. "A lot of people volunteered and gave for our house and family. After months of talking about, it we made the decision that it doesn't really do any good to keep digging a hole for ourselves."
In 2009, CBS highlighted six families who said they initially benefited from the Extreme Makeover experience but later found themselves unable to afford high taxes and maintenance bills and some had even taken out mortgages against the properties, which subsequently increased costs.
The Beach family said they were very happy with ABC, but that things changed when Mercy, their 2-year-old daughter, died from a seizure only weeks after the house was finished. They then decided they no longer wanted to foster kids and the sizeable house became unnecessary as their children started moving away.
The home, located at 1013 Delesandri Lane, was constructed for the Beach family in 2010 as part of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
