The Elcano Family

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Season 2, Episode 8
The Elcano Family
Recap By J.G. Bird
November 21, 2004
If you have family coming into town, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition continues to lineup deserving families and documents the rapid transformation of a whole home The stories serve to pull you in around the electronic hearth to be thankful for what you have. As a loyal viewer, I am often as aware as the design team members how hard a project is going to be when the family’s difficulties stem from tragedy. This family has lost the father, Glenn Elcano, a life and business partner, very recently to a car accident near the home in Bakersfield, CA.

The neighbors, the farming community all around, are part of the success of this makeover - lifting up this family. By joining together with the show’s producers and sponsors, we are witness to an immense effort to relieve some of the shock still hovering over this young, sweet family left handling the affairs of a family-owned alfalfa hay farm.

We are introduced to Jennifer Elcano and her two children, Michael, 11 and daughter, Ashley, six. They know the appearance of the design team is bringing them great changes, but every reaction is subdued. This family is still taking things in the day-by-day, cautionary attitude of grief. The hundred-year old Elcano home is a narrow 1000 sqft home and the view from within the front door almost makes it look like a one-room house, yet there is the kitchen off in the distance. Mom has office furniture directly adjacent to her bed. And each kid’s room is quite small. Plus, this house is situated on a little over 20 acres, a working farm. There are cats and chickens, rabbits and ducks, lambs, goats, you name it outside, plus, the boy owns a few reptiles, including a California King snake. Jennifer Elcano accepts the news about their vacation destination – Walt Disney World, in a visible wave of relief - it will be a joy for the kids. Ty’s first phone call to the limo simply covers the information that Jennifer’s mom, Diane, is someone the build will use from the area who can weld.

Ty interrupts the start up on demolition, informing the crew he wants to try a tractor-pull – which doesn’t work to topple the home. Next the heavy machinery is brought in, and those huge excavation shovels accomplish what the tractors could not. The major change to the property will be the addition of a 6000 sqft hay barn (an open structure to shelter the farm’s cash crop, plus doubling the size of the family home which is done in a barn-style.

This episode moves along with more focus on the design elements and shopping than we’ve seen in most of this season. Timeless Furniture, Sears and Bakersfield merchants seemed to embrace the project readily. The rodeo-style room for Ashley is supplied from a tack shop, and Michael’s room becomes filled with pet shop terrariums.

Jennifer’s parents are participants in the rebuilding process and are given time to express their memories of their son-in-law and there relief over how all the changes will benefit Jennifer in keeping his family’s farm alive.

The rebuild moves along without any problem under contractor Brian Sweaney.

The tilling and seeding of the farm’s acreage is assisted by neighboring farmers, working those late and early hours that farmers know well. It makes you feel like this show could take a whole new focus and be very successful at just helping American farm families. To this end it seems, Country-western singer Randy Travis is the guest star, and brings the town of Bakersfield a free concert held for the benefit of the Elcano’s. He sings a song from his new CD, which seems made for this occasion, called “Four Walls.” Its message is easily remembered in its chorus of: Four walls, three words, two hearts, one love.” The Travis touring bus is used as part of the reveal, we have two high-profile buildings to mask from the returning family’s direct view!


The happy moments during the reveal: The oldest son finding his room has even more reptiles than what he left behind, and the young daughter placing a perfectly fitting cowgirl hat on her head. Ty’s special room is the customer entry into the GlennJenn Farm home. It’s a perfect sales center for the business. The embossed tin ceiling in this area balances with the copper ceiling treatment in the kitchen. A lovely country touch is in all the furnishings throughout the home, particularly the master suite. Jennifer remarks that her bathroom is as large as the bedroom. The designers graciously placed Jennifer’s new retreat at the opposite end of the home from the business office. Psychology in design? You decide. Preston and Paul, ever the dear hearts where kids are concerned, made it a priority to hang in Michael’s room, the large, complicated airplane model that had been begun just before Glenn’s death.
Although Paul pledges to go to the Smithsonian to finish it, he opts to turn the model over to a local hobbyist to bring that closure too.

In addition to Randy Travis reprising his performance from the previous night, and announcing that $60,000 are in trust for the family as a result of the concert, the finishing touches are in the form of 15,000 bales of hay and two new vehicles. A business savvy Ford F250 for the heavy farm work, and a 2005 Ford minivan.

The ABC.go.com website has improved a number of the EM:HE pages on its site. The pages have more photos updating its look. There’s extra content on a playhouse for the Elcano family redesign that wasn’t part of the show broadcast. There’s also a new section for Home projects you can build. Interested in products or suppliers to the show? There are extensive listings episode by episode. A reminder, that your friendly EMHE recapper has no direct contact with the makers of the show. Your thoughts and well-wishes are wonderful, and should be sent to the production offices of the show.
Extreme Makeover
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