Magnolia Magic
Chip and Joanna Gaines, stars of HGTV’s monster hit Fixer Upper, still can’t believe that renovating houses in Waco, Texas, made them famous. “This really is our life,” says Chip. “It’s what we do.”
The show, entering its fourth season, follows Chip and Joanna as they turn dilapidated houses into dream digs. It has turned them into America’s home-renovation sweethearts and made the rough-sawn wooden paneling known as “shiplap” a household word. But Chip and Joanna aren’t just TV stars. They’re an empire with a construction company, Magnolia Homes, that has renovated and redesigned more than 200 homes and counting, a real estate company and new lines of Magnolia Home furniture, rugs, wallpaper and interior paint. There’s also the Magnolia Market at the Silos, a shopping, dining and entertainment complex in downtown Waco that sells everything from candles to clocks in Joanna’s signature farmhouse-meets-shabbychic style. Their vacation rental, Magnolia House, lets fans spend a few nights surrounded by creamy white shiplap and slipcovered furniture, Gaines-style. Their magazine, The Magnolia Journal, hits stands this month, and their first book, The Magnolia Story (available Oct. 18), tells how they went from broke newlyweds to pop culture phenoms juggling work and family. (They have four kids.) Then there’s the newest project, the Elite Café, a 1920s roadside diner in Waco that they’re renovating (no shiplap but lots of subway tile) into a farmto-table eatery.
“We like taking on big projects,” says Joanna, 38. “If our load was too light, we’d be a little bored.”
Mowing Lawns and Chasing Dreams
Chip, 41, is a born entrepreneur. He turned his first profit when he was in elementary school, selling juice boxes to kids at a tennis camp near his home in Albuquerque, N.M. Later, when his family moved to Dallas, Chip ran a fireworks stand and sold books door to door. He was always looking for ways to make money. While a sophomore at Baylor University in Waco, he began flipping houses using money earned from his one-man landscape business and a small loan from his parents. After graduating from Baylor with a business degree, he stayed in Waco and continued flipping houses. That’s where he met Joanna.
She was a recent Baylor graduate with a degree in communications. After interning in New York with Dan Rather, Joanna decided broadcast journalism and the big city weren’t for her. She came home to Waco to work at her father’s tire and auto repair shop. She appeared in the store’s TV ads and planned to take over the business someday. She and Chip met when he came into the store to get his brakes repaired and asked her out. The two hit it off immediately, even though they were opposites. She was serious and shy, the smart girl who always did her homework. He was funny and extroverted, the cute guy who never did his. But they clicked.
“He made me laugh,” Joanna said. “That’s why I fell in love with him.”
She began helping with his rentals and flips, painting, cleaning and decorating them. “I had no clue what I was doing. I didn’t know anything about interior design or construction,” Joanna says. “Neither of us did,” Chip says. “We learned it on the fly.” Less than two years after they met, they married and moved into one of Chip’s rental houses in Waco, their first
flip as a married couple. They repeated the pattern—buy it, fix it, flip it—and reinvested the profits into more property. They also bought and renovated an old store that became the first Magnolia Market, where Joanna sold flea market finds, flowers and candles. “We were a dual-business couple right off the bat,” Chip says. “We were rocking and rolling.”
Ten years, four children and many home renovations later, Chip and Joanna were still rocking and rolling when in 2012 a producer who’d seen photos of them and their work called and asked if they wanted to be on a TV show. They did, and the series, which debuted on HGTV in 2013, was an instant hit. Fixer Upper is pure binge-watching fun. You can lose yourself for hours watching the couple knock out walls, redesign spaces and
We like taking on big projects. If our load was too light, we’d be a little bored. —Joanna
pull it all back together for the big reveal.
How They Work
Joanna has the vision of how a property should look, and Chip executes that vision. For the most part, she handles the design and retail side of the business and Chip handles the construction and investment side of the business. “We’ve learned that we complement each other well when Chip stays in his lane and I stay in mine,” Joanna says. “We do our best work when we allow each other to be creative in our fields and trust that the other knows what they’re doing.”
They’ve made a conscious decision to stay in Waco and will not take on projects anywhere else. The reason? They want to stay home with their children. “It’s not worth it to take on some big deal and leave the kids for weeks,” Chip says.
“Maybe when the youngest heads off to college, we’ll reconsider,” Joanna says.
Today, their dream home is a renovated 100-year-old farm-
house that sits on 40 acres in Waco. They bought it in 2012 and live there with their kids and 60 animals. They don’t travel much, preferring to stay home. “We’re not good at vacations,” Joanna says.
They don’t have a television at the farm. They go to friends’ houses or to a restaurant to watch their show. “It makes for a fun Thursday night during the season,” Joanna says.
“Tuesday night!” Chip says. “We’re on Tuesdays!” Yes, Joanna does not know what day of the week her own show airs. You cannot be less impressed by your own celebrity than that.
That levelheaded, regularfolks vibe resonates with fans of the show as well as customers who stand in long lines to visit the Magnolia Market at the Silos.
“People can relate to Chip and me,” Joanna says. “We’re just like them. We love what we do. We built our business on good design and placed importance on family and home. Our fans take notice of that.” People also notice the pair’s chemistry. They clearly adore each other.They draw energy from each other, Joanna says, and don’t need time apart to keep the “happy” in happily married.
“We’re like brother and sister, best friends, husband and wife. We have all of these dynamics that keep things interesting,” Chip says. “There’s always just this little bit of a spark that even on the tough days makes it all worthwhile.”