The Housing Group Among Building Partners Contributing to Local ‘Extreme Makeover’

Posted by Jimmy Booth on March 11th, 2007

“When Tony Perry asked his fellow builders for assistance in the recent ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’ project at Lake Arrowhead, we welcomed the opportunity to help the Tipton-Smith family,” said Michael C. Ray, president and co-owner of The Housing Group. Ray explained that Perry, who with his wife Patti Bachtel are the owners of Oakwood Homes, had been selected as the builder for the project, which will be featured on an upcoming telecast of the television series. “Tony realized that Oakwood Homes would need some help to carry out the project, and he sent out an appeal to the Greater Atlanta Home Builders’ Certified Professional Homes Builders in order to come up with a group of builder partners,” said Ray. “When Tony first contacted me about the project, we responded immediately to the request for builder partners to join in the effort, and we were proud to be one of the nine builder partners selected for this project”.

Wanting to play a large role in the effort, The Housing Group, which is based in Cumming, assumed the management of the key building components of plumbing, HVAC and electrical labor and materials for the project. “Our guys started work that first day, the Saturday afternoon when work got underway, and they didn’t leave until right before the bus was moved on Thursday afternoon, when the Tipton-Smith family got their first look at the completed project,” said James MacDowell, Ray’s business partner in The Housing Group.

The Lake Arrowhead project was much more than an effort to rebuild a home…it was an effort to rebuild an family’s lives. Faith Tipton-Smith was a single mother with three children living in their “dream home” on Lake Arrowhead in the Waleska area of Cherokee County. Then in February of 2005, the family home was destroyed in a fire. The family decided to rebuild, and three months into that effort, the oldest child, Ransom, and one of his friends, Alex Yurewich, were killed in a tragic car accident, which also injured Tipton-Smith’s oldest daughter, Missy. The family’s problems continued to escalate as Tipton-Smith temporarily lost her job and medical bills kept piling up. As a result, the rebuilding effort on the home had to be abandoned while it was still in the framing stage.
Now at the mercy of the elements, the home was then engulfed with hazardous mold. At this low point in the family’s life, a family friend nominated the Tipton-Smiths for ABC’s “Extreme Makeover-Home Edition” show, and on Thursday, Jan. 11, the family woke to the sound of Ty Pennington, one of the show’s stars, proclaiming: “Good Morning, Tipton-Smith family.” The family was taken away for a vacation in California vacation while the rebuilding project took place to restore their “dream home”, and the actual work got underway at noon on Saturday, Jan. 13. Throughout the project, which wrapped up on Thursday afternoon, Jan. 18, there was an enormous display of support from the community with thousands of volunteers, businesses, and organizations pitching in to provide assistance to the effort and to the family. The television show’s episode featuring the project was aired on Sunday night, March 11.