Piestewa Family Extras

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition How’d They Do That?
The Piestewa Family
Recap By J.G. Bird
5-23-05

Tom Forman, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Producer, and Conrad Ricketts, Senior Producer comment on the significance of the production being welcomed onto the reservation land. Of the many places they’ve taken a crew in 2 seasons, it’s a first to be the guests of a distinct nation. A further distinction that was not made clear until tonight’s show: The Hopi Reservation exists on the Navajo Reservation.

The overall connective theme for this How’d They Do That? Every designer came away with a greater understanding of aspects of American Indian cultural. It is most apparent in the activities and commentaries of Preston, Ed and Ty.

Workers have gathered since 6am on the first construction day. The designers point out that those large throngs of workers sometimes have to wait. Here, with nothing around them on the Flagstaff build site, waiting on the camera crew gets particularly tedious. Eduardo Xol and Constance Ramos stroll out to the crowd to thank everyone for their patience; to keep morale and energy up for the coming shot. We see all the workers march onto the Piestewa land. Michael shows off the Shea Homes' “virtual reality” model. (This same view of the home can be seen on the Shea Homes website.) Paige attended a safety meeting at the local firehouse. Police and other public service members attending to the build site are routinely briefed. One officer shows Paige a scale site model. Such support is absolutely needed to accomplish the makeover in 7 days. It’s also pointed out that it takes a City willing to support the show’s presence. We are shown the makers of the show even receiving recognition from a U.S. Congressman.

A gas leak happened digging a trench for a water line – prompting an immediate evacuation of everyone to the perimeter of the build site. Everything stopped for a time, and it was eerily quiet. Again, no one anticipated or wanted to have to wait. The safety came first, of course.

Ed and Preston try to do the same telephone magic that Ty accomplishes each week – lining up a builder. After several calls to get a 2000 sq.ft. modular home delivered same-day, even one in which Ed tries impersonating Ty, they decide that’s a tougher job than they imagined. Well, the building arrived in a few hours, got stuccoed, and only 3 and a half days after starting, a completed Native American Veterans Affairs Center was opened to the veterans.

Ed was pleased to have Preston design Indian-geometrics inspired furniture pieces that he then doggedly built. Ed admitted to knowing nothing about the Native cultures, so his interactions at the build were that much more important to him.

Ty relates, while searching trails on a borrowed horse named Poncho, some of the knowledge he has gathered about Hopi beliefs. The significance of “fours,” the four directions: North, South, East, West; colors: white, black, yellow, red (both in corn varieties and creation’s people). He wants to bring the outdoors in for his Secret room.
Fallen trees are milled onsite and used for natural wood window sills, a massive window bench and the pine branch headboard. He also incorporates some finished birch branch chairs and large ladders to accent the room.

Preston brings a Hopi basket artisan to meet Ty. She explains the significance behind her creation for the room. Ty seemed really humbled to have been successful in pleasing the Piestewa’s. Some great still shots are captured in the room reveal.

Besides some Paul-led goofiness for relocating Myrtle the Turtle into a new aquarium, and then a short peek into the Los Angeles production offices for the show, some of the personality of Percy Piestewa was the best human interest added to this installment. At a point in Tuba City, where “the bus” breaks down, Michael asks if Percy could fix it. “Yeah, I could fix it,” Percy chimes in, “but it wouldn’t work!”

Seeing these moments is just as important to me as understanding the way these builds are accomplished in 7 days. Basically we’ve all learned it boils down to the people involved. If you felt your heartstrings pulled more than usual, perhaps it was due to the special orchestration added for this season finale.

The closing moments of the show may have also gotten your hopes up. Ty lays down the megaphone and lets the bus run over it, almost pledging to give it up for the next season. However, there are plenty of megaphones in the world (and off camera) so, mega-free Ty ain’t happening folks!