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The morning TV host returned to Long Island to raise his family

Brian Kilmeade shows Closer his family’s welcoming Long Island, N.Y., estate.

There are a lot of people from Massapequa who had to leave to gain notoriety,” says Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade, 53, citing Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Guttenberg and the Baldwin brothers as fellow natives of his Long Island, N.Y., town. “I was the only one to be here and gain notoriety.” Brian, who also hosts the nationally syndicated The Brian Kilmeade Show on Fox News Radio, admits he did take a brief detour

“I love that history happened here — you can see and feel it. Teddy Roosevelt’s summer home is nearby.” — Brian

to LA, but he returned to his hometown in 2000 and found a four-bedroom, two-anda-half-bath home for his wife of 24 years, Dawn, and their kids Bryan, 21, Kirstyn,

16, and Kaitlyn, 14. “Since I met my wife in high school, she liked Massapequa, too, so it made sense,” he explains. “And if I’m going to work in the city, I’m not going to live in the city.”

They wanted a new home for a fresh start. “I’m not really that handy, so we wanted something ready to go that wouldn’t need a lot of work and we could grow into,” he says, but things didn’t quite go as planned.

The house was newly constructed, but “it wasn’t built that well,” he admits. “We had to redo a lot of things — make the bedroom closets bigger, add a room off the back, and redo and excavate the entire lawn because there were problems with drainage.” Then Hurricane Sandy in 2012 offered them another unplanned chance to remodel.

“The house was flooded with three feet of water, so we had the opportunity to move the kitchen where the dining room was and change the whole structure downstairs,” he says. “We put in a counter where you can sit and eat. It’s the focal point no matter what we do.” The renovation took more than a year. “We had to take up all the wood floors, spray all the stuff with mold on it, and cut out the whole bottom six feet of Sheetrock!” he recalls. But again, there was a bright side. “We now have tiles that look like wood floors. They’re not scratchable, they look great, and they’re very practical.”

And should another superstorm hit their house (which is less than a 10-minute walk from South Oyster Bay), Brian is prepared: “If it floods again, we can hose the floor down rather than rip it up!”

“We have a trampoline and a pool. We want to keep our guests busy!” — Brian (with daughter Kirstyn)

The “Paris” end table in the den doesn’t have any special meaning, Brian tells Closer: “We just thought it looked good!”

“I love sports,” saysBrian, who enjoys shooting hoops using hispool’s basketball net.

TUNE IN: Brian co-hosts Fox & Friends daily from 6 to 9 a.m. ET on Fox News Channel and co-wrote Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans with Don Yaeger,out Oct. 24.

Dawn designed the backyard, and the pool’s waterfall“was my wife’s idea,” he says. “Every good idea is hers.” “From the time I was a little kid I collected newspaper headlines.”