Family says show built facade after wrecking house
Gary and Sharon Rosier just wanted a new garage. Instead, they say, their Chicago-area home was practically ruined for a Fox TV reality show.
The couple were approached by Hollywood scouts while they were attending a Chicago boat show with their three children, including their teenage son Steven, in 2004.
The scouts said they were looking for families with special needs who could benefit from “up to a $1 million” in home improvements, and the Rosier family fit the bill. Steven, then 16, had been in a wheelchair since a 2003 snowboarding accident.
The Rosiers said they would love to have a garage that was attached to their home, so Steven wouldn’t have to navigate an icy ramp outdoors in the cold Midwestern winter. But they said the folks from Rocket Science Laboratories, the production company, encouraged them to think bigger.
A boat? A bigger home? A house by the lake? Rocket Science told them to draft a wish list to fulfill “their ultimate dream,” according to a suit the Rosiers filed later.
The Rosiers asked for three bedrooms and a bathroom atop a three-car attached garage, along with amenities including a dishwasher and more closets.
Rocket Science, which also produced the “Joe Millionaire” and “Temptation Island” reality shows for Fox, faxed a contract to the family. Sharon Rosier said she wanted an attorney to review it, but she said that she was told they had one hour to sign it and that any delay would jeopardize the makeover.
They signed. Four days later, a crew arrived to chronicle the project. With the cameras rolling, the Rosiers learned that most of their house was about to be torn down.
Gary Rosier, a carpenter, had built their oak cabinets by hand. He and Steven had cut the planks and laid the wooden floor themselves just before Steven’s accident. They had constructed a wooden deck for their above-ground pool and spent years landscaping the yard.
The Rosiers didn’t think they had any choice but to go along with the plans, they said. The next day they were whisked off to Wisconsin in an RV while their home was being rebuilt, accompanied by a camera crew and show host Jay McGraw, son of TV psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw.
The producers of the show, which aired briefly as “Renovate My Family,” had them rehearse the “reveal,” the moment when they got to see their renovated house. There would be emotion, but not the kind the producers had hoped.
“When we saw the house and the old garage still standing we wanted to cry from devastation,” Sharon Rosier said. “We did retakes three or four times because our expression was not good enough.”
The house looked nice from the outside, but inside it was a different story.
New dormer windows made it look as if a second story, with bedrooms, had been added, but it was just for show.
The couple also alleged other problems, including floors that buckled and electrical, heating and plumbing problems such as the installation of a washing machine without a drain. The dryer vent was directed into a closet, not outside. The oak cabinets had been replaced by laminated pressboard. Their yard had been leveled; their pool was gone. And the garage was still detached from their home.
The lawsuit filed by the family against Fox Broadcasting Co. and Rocket Science was settled out of court for terms that were not disclosed. Representatives of Fox and the production company declined to comment.
The lawsuit also alleged that DuPage County failed to inspect the home properly, a claim the chief inspector denied. The Chicago Tribune reported that the inspector said the home met local construction code, but acknowledged that “you can expect problems” when a house is built in a week.
Gary Rosier declined to discuss the case but made this observation: “Hollywood destroys people’s lives, but they don’t care. They act like they want to help you, but they don’t. They just want to make money.”
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