Kemah house getting 'Extreme Makeover'
Melissa Beach, center, holds Jeremiah while surrounded by some of the children she is caring for. Pi
Ty Pennington and his TV crew from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition knocked on the door of a Kemah family with 13 kids Thursday to let them know that they can move out of the trailers they've been living in since Hurricane Ike damaged their house.
By this time next week, volunteers working side by side with celebrities will have turned the Beach family's one-story brick house on Delesandri Street into a 6,300-square-feet dream home, the largest in the TV show's history.
Many in the Clear Lake area already know the Beach family's compelling story, which caught the attention of TV producers who receive 10,000 to 15,000 applications for home makeovers each week.
Larry and Melissa Beach have fostered 85 children over the last 12 years, but decided to start adopting when they realized how many kids never got placed in permanent homes. Kids with disabilities were especially hard to place, so the Beaches embraced them.
"I don't think I've had a full night's sleep since 1997," Melissa Beach told the Houston Chronicle last spring.
Hurricane Ike hasn't stopped the Beaches from caring for far more kids than most families think they could handle, but they've been unable to adopt any more since they lost their house.
When Ike hit in September 2008, the Beaches had no insurance to repair damage from flooding. Nearly all their possessions destroyed, they first moved into tents, then trailers.
Now, a local builder called Blue Shields Construction, the reality TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and scores of community volunteers are coming together to rebuild the Beaches' house in just 103 hours.
The new home will be revealed to the family and community on Thursday, Jan. 14. A two-hour special episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is scheduled to air on ABC in March.
Read more about Extreme Makeover's Kemah show from the Houston Chronicle.
Read a March 2009 article from the Houston Chronicle.
Read a February 2009 article from the Galveston County Daily News.
