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From EAST BAY BUSINESS TIMES - December 20, 2004
Monday, December 20, 2004
Katherine Conrad
Some 30 doors were delivered to the construction site of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" in Martinez and promptly unloaded by a crew racing to build a house in 109 hours - not 109 days, 109 hours.
But the scene was not caught by the TV cameras. Someone must have forgotten to yell, " Lights, camera, action."
So the crew was ordered to return the doors to the truck and then unload them again. This time, however, the cameras were rolling.
"Hollywood and housing construction don't mix really well," said Lori Sanson, executive vice president of DeNova Homes, the Pleasant Hill contractor that volunteered to build on the most challenging site either DeNova or Extreme Makeover has ever encountered.
The job was to replace a 1,200-square-foot house on a hill in Martinez overlooking the Shell oil refinery with a 3,600-square-foot home for the Sears family - and do it while cameras rolled for ABC's home improvement hit reality show.
DeNova, in business since 1989, is on track to build 200 homes this year. But none will prove to be as difficult as the Sears' new $800,000-plus home.
"Slope, slope, slope, slope and slope," said Dan Ruthroof, an architect with the Dahlin Group in San Ramon, who designed the home for the site and was well aware of its problems. He forgot to add the part about the narrow winding roads, lack of access and, of course, the production schedule.
Builders had from Friday morning on Dec. 10 until Tuesday afternoon on Dec. 14 to demolish the existing home; move 600 yards of debris and dirt down 200-foot hillsides; transport roof trusses in by helicopter; plunk down 800 pounds of rocks into mud to stabilize a 50-foot-by-50-foot surface to support the heavy equipment provided by Dublin's DeSilva Gates; and landscape the yard. Three huge cranes loomed over neighboring rooftops as workers formed human chains to bring materials on site.
"The site is a huge challenge," said Sanson, who tears up every time she discusses the Sears family and what they have endured since 17-year-old Jhyrve Sears was afflicted by a rare genetic disease.
" We are so honored to be on this build. We are huge fans of the show."
Clearly, she is not alone. Hundreds of workers, all wearing blue T shirts, worked around the clock at the site trying to finish before Tuesday's deadline. On Wednesday, Dec. 15, Jhyrve was scheduled to return home after seven months in a North Carolina hospital, where she was sent after being stricken with the enzyme-deficiency syndrome, Krabbe Disease.
Doctors would not allow the teen-ager to go home after a successful cord blood transplant because of the risk of infection from molds and allergens present in her old house.
So it fell to the Dahlin Group to design a wheelchair-accessible "bubble home," and it fell to DeNova to build it.
When the small regional builder was offered the opportunity to construct the house, Sanson said her advice to her husband, Dave, was, "Go for it. You will never find a better team-building opportunity where this many people can work together. The business tools and life lessons are all just overwhelming."
The project almost went to Standard Pacific Homes Inc., a larger home builder that had just completed a house in Denver for Extreme Makeover. But the company ultimately decided to pass up the Martinez project.
" It was a terrible time for us," said Standard Pacific Division Manager Glen Martin. "We have a gigantic closing schedule in November and December.
"Timing-wise, I've strained everybody, who is working long and hard," Martin said. "It came down to our staff. To what extent are we going to burden people?"
Dave Sanson now understands that dilemma. As he watched the driveway being poured, he said he has learned one thing on the project: In every 24-hour period, get at least three hours of sleep.
"I'm in awe myself," said the builder, who said he would have told the owner - if asked - that the site was not worth building on. But the producers of "Extreme Makeover" wanted a challenge and they found one at the end of Yale Street in Martinez.
"I'm not doing this for ABC," Dave Sanson said. "I'm doing it for the family. I'm not doing this to be on TV; it's for the spirit of the community."
The entire project has been a community effort that has included police and building inspectors, not to mention hundreds of volunteers supplying food, coffee and even lights for nighttime work. When Martinez Mayor Rob Schroder recruited Sanson and DeNova to do the job, the builder admitted, "The whole idea scared the hell out of me."
Before committing, he telephoned his most trusted subcontractors on a Saturday.
"I called my buddies: Bill Cawley at Benicia Plumbing, Jim Kennedy at Dawson Electric and Greg Scotto at Pacific Heating & Sheet Metal. R.J.S. and Associates was already on the job," he said. "These guys are great. If any one of them hadn't shown, this couldn't be done."
Several looked at the plans and said it couldn't be done in a week, but they signed on anyway. Then, Dave Sanson told them, they didn't have a week, they had four and a half days.
Ultimately, they got it done. But Sanson will never do it again.
"I could never create the same emotions," he said, admitting to exhaustion. "It's such a taxing experience physically. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
Like many others, Sanson stayed at the site for the first 60 hours, before grabbing some sleep, only to return at 2 a.m. "I was running on fear the first few days. The site has thrown us every curve ball," he said. "It's asking people to do too much."
Yet in the next breath, Sanson marvels at the amazing cooperation of the Comcast representative who told him to call if he needed anything at the build.
"Everybody has been like that. It is exciting to be part of this. I'm not out here to fail. The key to success is that I knew I could count on these guys."
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Reach Conrad at kconrad@bizjournals.com or 925-598-1427.
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