HGTV comes to East Boston
A Los Angeles film crew was in town this summer filming segments for the popular cable television show, “My House Is Worth WHAT?” that airs on HGTV at 11 p.m. Tuesdays.
The three-man crew visited homes in Back Bay, the South End, Cambridge and East Boston, where changes had been made since their purchase. Boston Homes caught up with them in East Boston.
The show should be aired sometime this winter.
When Andrew Terrat of Terrat Elms Interior Design as well as a partner in the high-end furniture store Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams in Boston and Natick was looking to move from his luxurious address at One Charles in the Back Bay, he found a loft in a converted factory in East Boston.
It was certainly not at the same price point as his previous homes, but the condo presented an opportunity to create something exciting. Before One Charles, he had lived at Atelier | 505, at the Residences at the Ritz as well as in the South End.
“But the moment I opened the front door and saw the 22-foot-high ceiling, that was ‘a wowie’ to me. It’s so different from any other home I have lived in.”
Purchase price? $345,000, with a deeded garage parking space. That was in April 2007.
Setting up the next shot, show producer Mike Noble discusses what he envisions with his crew, Bruce Hsiao and Chuck Sanderson.
Last week, a Los Angeles film crew was filming the condo and the surrounding neighborhood for a segment in the popular cable television show, “My House Is Worth WHAT?” that airs on HGTV at 11 p.m. Tuesdays.
One of several networks owned by Scripps Network Interactive, HGTV has a few ground rules for a property to be featured. The home must have undergone some changes, and it cannot be on the market. Only first names of the homeowners are used and no specific addresses. But Bostonians would easily recognize a couple of the locations.
Now in its third year, each show focuses on three properties in different parts of the country. There are five full-time producers. Mike Noble of Pie Town Productions, the show producer, along with Bruce Hsiao, director of photography, and soundman Chuck Sanderson, was in Boston for two weeks to profile four properties, which included a Victorian Back Bay townhouse, a single-family clapboard house in the South End, an expensive condominium at the Esplanade in Cambridge and the East Boston loft.
Each shoot entails a full day of work, and the process is repetitive. Last week Boston Homes observed part of the filming in East Boston.
With the camera – an HD Panasonic – focused on him, Terrat answered questions about the renovations and updates. Each take yielded shorter, more concise answers. Then the camera panned to his partner, Greg Sweeney, a sales director at New York-based JSI Worldwide, who responded similarly. “Cut!” orders Noble.
“Say the year that you purchased your condo; when this goes into reruns, we need the year.”
Bruce Hsiao, director of photography, left, and soundman Chuck Sanderson, right, talk about the next segment they will film as Andrew Terrat looks on.
A cell phone rings and filming stops. Then they all “start from the top.” Again.
Two hours later, the filmmakers turn their attention to Ricardo Rodriguez of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage’s Back Bay office, who walks through the home with the couple, commenting on their renovations: Will the changes add to the value or detract?
The segment concludes with Rodriguez telling Terrat and Sweeney what their home is worth, taking into consideration the purchase price, the improvements, the location, the proximity to public transportation and the marketplace. Stay tuned.
The production crew also captured street scenes of the neighborhood like the three-story brick apartments, built about the same time as the factory, and the nearby Memorial Park on Bremen Street, which was recently refurbished as part of the Big Dig’s amenities.
Smartly dressed in a tailored blue shirt and black slacks and a black tie with a tiger, Rodriguez speaks directly to the camera. In East Boston and in other areas of the city, he says, a lot of old industrial spaces have been converted to lofts with success. This has occurred more recently in East Boston.
“The Boston market is fueled by students and young professionals,” he continues, interrupted by a passing car.
Ricardo Rodriguez talks about the Boston housing market.
“A true loft is open, but many that are described as lofts are overbuilt, with too many separate rooms.”
Terrat’s loft is in a distinctive building. General Electric constructed the first section of the building in 1913 and extended its length to 600 feet in 1917. The factory produced lamps and by the mid-1930s was making miniature Christmas lights.
Only essential lamps were made during World War II, and after the war, foreign competition slowed down the factory, which closed in 1962. Other manufacturers were housed in the building, including the Goddess Bra factory. Four years ago ELV Associates Inc. and Metric Corp. redeveloped the building, creating 217 lofts.
This loft, with 917 square feet of living space, was delivered with carbonized bamboo flooring, a linear kitchen with a stainless steel refrigerator, gas range, microwave and dishwasher and a stainless steel counter. White open shelving offered limited storage.
“The first thing we did was build closets,” said Terrat and Sweeney. “There was no storage.” They bought cabinets from Ikea, assembled them and then hired a contractor to build walls around them.
They also moved the refrigerator to a new wall, diagonally opposite the stove, that shortened the depth of the living room but better defined the kitchen.
They also added a white high-gloss laminated counter that gives more storage and also serves as a breakfast bar. Above the sink and range, they added metallic-colored penny glass tiles for a backsplash.
As a designer trick, they placed a mirror against the wall in the kitchen to add light to the space. They added another large mirror in an alcove set up for dining to reflect the natural light from two windows.
The most recent project was building this open staircase of steel and bamboo. The railing is to be installed.
Above the kitchen was a mezzanine that was only used for storage. They extended the space so that it encompasses the width of the condo, allowing for placement of a large bed and the construction of more closet space. The net effect was to add 209 square feet.
Beneath the sleeping area is a full, tiled bath with a pedestal sink and what was a bedroom that has been turned into a home office.
A striking, open steel staircase with treads of vertical grained bamboo frames this space. That project is not quite finished; the steel railings have not been attached. Terrat said prior to the new stairs, installed about three weeks ago, they had used a rickety ladder to get to the new bedroom.
The next project will be updating the bath and perhaps adding another bath on the mezzanine level. Throughout the renovations, Terrat and Sweeney lived in the condo. “I wouldn’t recommend it,” Terrat laughed. “We had floor-to-ceiling boxes, and we only got rid of the final ones last night!”
By day’s end, the team had recorded at least five 30-minute tapes about the loft and the neighborhood that will be reduced to a seven-minute segment by editors back in California, mixing sound and splicing camera shots that will all come together smoothly on the screen, to be broadcast in about six months. Viewers then will learn what is the worth of this loft.
