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HGTV Came Knocking

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By JILL YELVERTON

Tribune correspondent

Published: August 13, 2008

TRINITY - One local family discovered on HGTV's "House Hunters" that home is where the heart is.
Ivis and Marcus McCollum had been married for five years when they moved to Pasco County's Trinity community. They were attracted to the fact that it was an area in transition.

"We decided we wanted to start a family and needed more home space. In 2001, they had just started building extremely affordable homes in the New Port Richey area - now known as Trinity. Marcus is a golf fanatic, and had played golf at the Fox Hollow Golf Club and noticed that the homes were beautiful and affordable. The combination of affordability, newness ... and the ability to walk to the golf course were the prime reasons we moved to Trinity," Ivis McCollum said. "We knew this place was going to boom. At first there was nothing here, and then everything started to fill: new stores, new attractions."

The couple didn't realize that what was perfect for them at first might not work after their children were born.

"When you're buying the house and you don't have any kids, you're not thinking about kids. This house didn't have much of a yard but was right next to a conservation area with a little pond and we thought, 'Who cares, we don't need a backyard; we have a pool.'

"

After their sons Jackson and Ian were born, the couple started seeing their home in a different way. The pond was beautiful but the large alligators that frequently lounged along the banks changed from interesting subjects for photography to potential child-snatchers.

"Literally, they would sit on the bank in the grass, and I've walked that close to them to take pictures," Ivis McCollum said, measuring the distance between her two hands.

So the search for a new home began, and that's where HGTV's "House Hunters" factors in. The title of the episode is "Goodbye, Gators!"

It Was A Quick Selection Process

Their real estate agent, Joe Gibbons, with Lipply Real Estate Group, a group with Re/Max Realtec, had been contacted by HGTV about possible candidates for the show "House Hunters."

"When HGTV contacted us I think they were just shopping the area," Gibbons said. "I think they found our real estate Web site - that's how they first contacted us - then they asked if we had any clients who were buying and selling within the next couple of months."

Gibbons said he immediately thought of the McCollums and approached them with the idea of being on the show.

"Joe Gibbons called and asked if we would be interested in being on this show. I was like, 'Me? Miss Dramatic?' Of course I'm interested."
HGTV sent Ivis an e-mail with a questionnaire with instructions to videotape their house and themselves responding to the questionnaire.

"Needless to say, we did the video immediately and I Federal Expressed it back to them, and they called the very next day and in about three days we were booked to be on the show." Ivis said. "They said, 'We definitely would love to have you on our show; when can we come out there?'"

The first shoot lasted four days. The couple was on camera six to eight hours every day.

"It was pretty grueling," Ivis McCollum said. "They shot our house and the three we had narrowed the search to, and they shoot every room in every house so it's a lot of work."

Although some aspects of the show are staged - the final segment of the show was shot five months after the couple moved in to their new house - the couple's onscreen reactions are unrehearsed.

"It's not scripted," Ivis McCollum said. "We said whatever we wanted to say."

Husband A Bit Less Enthusiastic

Initially, Ivis McCollum said her husband was less enthusiastic about the idea of being on the show, partly because it required him to take vacation days from work to accommodate the filming. Ivis McCollum works from home as an imaging and printing specialist for Hewlett-Packard.

"I was a little hesitant only in the fact that at work I was really busy and didn't want to miss that many days, which totaled five by the end of filming," said Marcus McCollum, a 43-year-old salesman with Cutting Edge Granite in Largo. "In the end, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so how could we even think about passing this up? Plus, my wife would disown me."

A lot of the legwork was done before "House Hunters" became involved. Ivis McCollum said the couple looked at "a good 15 to 20 homes" before they narrowed it to the three homes presented on the show.

Features they were looking for in the new home included at least four bedrooms; a large backyard for their sons to play in; a pool and covered lanai; but mostly, they wanted to stay close to, if not right in, the Fox Wood area in Trinity.

"We don't have family in Florida. All of our family is in the Northeast and Midwest," Ivis McCollum said. It's so family-oriented here. We have really good friends that have kids our children's age. We've become very close - almost family - and not only did I not want to pull myself away from that, I didn't want to take my kids away from it, either.

"It's so supportive we can all hang out together. We're two minutes from each other. Our kids play and we can have adult conversation. If I have to go somewhere we can drop the kids off and they can do the same."

Community Feels Like Family
Ivis McCollum's mother died five years ago, so the friendships the couple have made took on new importance.

"It's hard when you don't have grandma. You have to pick and choose your friends wisely and then rely on them to be you family because you don't have anybody else. And that's happened here."

In the beginning, the home search took them a few miles up the road to the Thousand Oaks subdivision and as far away as East Lake Woodlands in Palm Harbor.

"When I went to East Lake Woodlands, it just didn't feel right," Ivis McCollum said. "I just had to believe that we'd find something in Trinity. I'm one of those people that go with my gut."

Marcus McCollum shares his wife's enthusiasm.

"Trinity is an awesome growing community with everything to offer within the community. Shopping, dining, schools, parks, and soon a new town center and hospital," he said.

"We feel extremely blessed being able to live in such a wonderful home - we call it paradise - and in a neighborhood that our children, even when they get older and become parents, will always call home," she said.

Looking back on the experience, the McCollums said they would do the show again.

"Obviously I was nervous at first because we were actually acting, " Marcus McCollum said. "Once I got the feel for what the producer wanted, then acting became natural. It was an unbelievable experience, and I would do it again."

'HOUSE HUNTERS'

WHEN: Episode featuring the McCollums will air at 10 p.m. Thursday and 2 a.m. Friday on HGTV.

WHAT: According to HGTV's Web site, "The program features a behind the scenes look at the home buying and selling experience from the homeowner's perspective. Viewers follow the search and learn what to look for and decide whether or not a home is meant for them."

WEB SITE: Full episodes can be viewed at www.hgtv.com. Click on On TV, then on Full Episodes from the drop-down menu.

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