‘This Old House’ Raises Walls--and Hackles

Craig and Kathy McGraw Bentley envisioned the quaint 19th-century farmhouse as a retreat--a place where they would vacation with their children in the summers and one day retire.

The run-down cottage, a six-minute walk from Nantucket’s cobblestone Main Street, was a bargain at $481,000--half the price of neighboring homes on the exclusive resort island.

And when the Boston-based home improvement show “This Old House” asked to feature the Bentleys’ Milk Street home--fixing it up, making it a showcase--the family felt doubly blessed.

Less than two years later, after contentious meetings with historic officials and budget-busting expenses, the couple hopes to sell the house and break even.

“It’s certainly not what we anticipated,” Kathy Bentley said.

Although the Bentley case is extreme, the family’s problems are not new to “This Old House,” which has weathered 19 seasons of do-it-yourself house renovations to become the highest-rated show on public television.

Homeowners often become disenchanted by “grandiosity creep” as expenses balloon. At the same time, historians are often disappointed--or openly enraged--when the show emphasizes thrift over historic preservation.

“By virtue of their name and approach . . . they have a responsibility to be accurate in what they’re portraying,” said Paul Vitali of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Homeowners generally decide the good outweighs the bad and end up loving their new old houses.

Not the Bentleys.

The Milk Street house has been on the market since renovations were completed in June, 10 months after the show finished filming. The couple declined to say why they want to sell.

Built in 1887, the house was an eyesore with chipping paint and a rotting wood frame when the Bentleys bought it in March 1996. They planned to spend about $200,000 in renovations.

Final cost: $341,000 for labor, materials and taxes on donated products.

“We’re concerned about the numbers,” Kathy Bentley told host Steve Thomas when the project was just $60,000 over budget.

Producer Russell Morash acknowledged many homeowners find it difficult to refuse top-of-the-line products donated to the show, even when they increase installation costs and taxes.

“It’s a once in a lifetime option, a bit like winning the lottery,” he said. “It takes a lot of restraint, and some are better at it than others.”

Dennis Duffy got $110,000 in free products when his Napa, Calif., kitchen was renovated on the show in 1994. But he also spent about $55,000 more than his $110,000 budget.

“You’ve got the one shot and you’re trying to get as much done as you can,” Duffy said.

Craig Bentley calls it “grandiosity creep.”

“In that environment, you end up with a more complete finished home, but with a more elaborate product than you first envisioned,” Bentley told Nantucket Magazine.

Homeowners also have run into trouble with historic commissions, which have the final say on any changes that can be seen from the street.

Nantucket’s Historic District Commission, the third oldest in the nation and notoriously finicky, challenged nearly every exterior proposal the Bentleys presented.

“From the point of view of the producers of ‘This Old House’ it was a much more interesting story for them to take what looked like this simple little farmhouse and style it up,” said commission member Sandy Knox-Johnston. “But it isn’t appropriate to create grandeur where it didn’t exist before.”

The commission vetoed requests to add an intricate wood fence and patterned shingles. At one point, neighbors complained so much about the “custom-made vinyl windows”--as described in a letter in the local newspaper--that commissioners scraped the frames with razor blades to confirm they were made of wood, as required.

The show ran into trouble with another historic commission in 1994 during the renovation of a 200-year-old house in Salem, Mass. Homeowners Kevin and Deborah Guinee wanted to install an arched carriageway that would cut through the side of the house--ruining the rectangular box shape essential to Federal style.

The fight proved too much. At one meeting, a board member criticized Deborah Guinee, who was pregnant with her third child, for “waddling into our neighborhood and putting in a garage door.” She fled the room in tears, and the couple soon dropped their request.

“I hold no grudges, I love where I live and I love my house,” Deborah Guinee said recently. “The only drawback was the historic commission.”

Tangles with historic commissions are common around the country, but Nantucket officials said they expected more from America’s favorite home improvement show.

“Almost everyone who buys [houses on the island] wants to do something to them. I guess I thought it would be easier to deal with ‘This Old House,’ ” said Patricia Butler, former administrator for the historic commission.

But the show has never claimed to be about restoration, says spokeswoman Kimberly Cotter--it’s about renovation and preservation. Like its budget-conscious viewers, “This Old House” has sought an affordable middle ground since its first project in 1979.

In redoing an 1884 townhouse in Savannah, Ga., the show opted to salvage and clean bricks from an inner wall instead of using custom-made copies. The historically sound decision saved about $1.20 per brick.

At the show’s current project in Milton, Mass.--which need not be approved by preservationists--builders dumped the century-old windows in favor of energy-efficient replacements. The factory-made frames saved several hundred dollars up front and probably will save thousands later in heating bills.

“At times, ‘This Old House’ will show you how to do old things yourself, and other times they admit the only way you can do that is to hire an expert,” said Carolyn Goldstein, who is preparing an exhibit about 20th-century home improvement at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. “They’re not rigid, and that’s why people like them.”