[We all need comfort texts in 2026, and for my wife and I one of our most surprising finds has been the delightful home renovation show Home Town. The show is deeply tied to its historic community of Laurel, so this week I’ve AmericanStudied a handful of Laurel histories, leading up to this special weekend tribute to what makes Home Town so special!]
On three of the many things we love about Home Town.
- Rejuvenating a town: In the initial voiceover with which Season 1’s episodes began, the show’s hosts and stars Erin and Ben Napier noted that their “beautiful small town” of Laurel had “seen hard times,” but that they’re “committed to changing that, one house at a time.” That season began airing in January 2016, and this past January through March the show aired its 10th season; so it’s fair, and indeed quite accurate, to say that these two and the show and its legacies have dramatically changed Laurel’s trajectory and fully rejuvenated this small town. You can see that most clearly whenever they show Laurel’s downtown, which has changed in countless small and big ways over this decade. As Vaughn has put it succinctly and pitch-perfectly, it was and remains a stroke of genius to have gotten HGTV’s support and funding to transform their beloved hometown and community, and that alone would make this show quite different from any other home renovation show I know—and far more interesting to an AmericanStudier to boot.
- Renovating historic homes: There would be many different ways such a rejuvenation could happen, however, and a fair number of them would fall under the umbrella of gentrification. That was a particular danger with the show’s initial framing, which featured individuals and families moving to Laurel from elsewhere; in later seasons more and more of the stories have focused on current residents, making clear that this isn’t about kicking people out. But in each and every case, whether for new or current Laurelites, Erin and Ben have done a phenomenal job highlighting, emphasizing, and doing everything they can to maintain the histories and identities of the homes on which they’re working. They do so through the symbolic step of telling the new owners the house’s name and the family and community histories to which those names always connect. And they do so in the very practical process of keeping and using as much from these historic homes as they can, honoring their pasts while still making sure that they will fit their new inhabitants long into the future. When we learned that Ben was a History major in college, that detail made all the sense in the world.
- Reimagining Southern white masculinity: I’m certainly biased, not only because of that interest in History but also because he shares my name, my love of bad puns and worse Dad jokes, and my passion for fatherhood in general, but I think Ben Napier is an incredibly inspiring figure to be central to such a long-running and popular show. He could so easily be a walking stereotype of a Southern white man—a former youth pastor turned woodworker who drives a pickup truck and frequently sports an American flag baseball cap, a giant of a man who pays his best friends in food when they help with projects for the show. All those things are completely true, and that’s the thing—there’s no reason why they have to equal a man who fits any of the more negative sides to Southern white male identity, whether in terms of how they view or treat others or in the kind of perspective and voice and performance of identity they themselves embody and model. Indeed Ben, like other exemplary Southern white men I’ve known and been inspired by, models the very best of us, and I’m doubly proud to share a name with him.
Next series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you think?
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