The renovation gets personal in ‘Honeymoon’
Property Brothers set up house in L.A.
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – Marital bliss means never having to cut the grass.
Under the blazing August sun, the identical twin Property Brothers, Jonathan and Drew Scott, joined by Drew’s fiancé, Linda Phan, are considering six squares of AstroTurf, two of which look incredibly grasslike.
Artificial grass is easier to maintain, Drew says, and the soon-to-benewlyweds won’t need to water it.
“We want this to be a green home and lower our carbon footprint,” Drew says.
Drew and Linda, who dated for six years before becoming engaged last December, expect to wed next year and will settle in Los Angeles. Since they are reality TV stars, a new five-part series, HGTV’s Property Brothers at Home: Drew’s Honeymoon House (due Nov. 22, Wednesdays at 9 ET/PT), celebrates their move, complete with a full home renovation. Naturally, Jonathan is their contractor. The show culminates in a pre-wedding party.
Cameras roll as the trio weighs the merits of Bermuda-style grass vs. a seaweed hue. “I say we have a seat,” Phan suggests as the three plunk down on the samples.
The patch with the thinner blades of grass wins.
With construction workers hammering away on the 3,400-squarefoot historic Hancock Park property, the 39-year-old twins and Phan sit on folding chairs in front of a dirt pit that will become a pool.
This is the first Scott property in Los Angeles, after the Vancouverborn brothers spent a decade sharing a house in Las Vegas. But Jonathan’s not going anywhere, he in- sists. “I’ve actually designed it with a guest suite,” complete with a separate kitchen,” he says. “My girlfriend (Jacinta Kuznetsov) and I were like, ‘All right, we’ve got to have someplace to stay in L.A.’ ”
To put it in Property Brothersspeak, these were Scott and Phan’s must-haves when planning a full gut job of their 1921 English-style home: a big kitchen that overlooks the backyard, a rooftop hot tub, a “spalike” bathroom with a free-standing soaking tub, a gigantic master closet — and a craft room for Phan.
“Linda is a craft queen,” Drew says. “If you like ‘crafternoons,’ come join us.”
Drew says the result will be “Old Hollywood glam, but not over the top,” with an Art Deco feel. Like his clients, Drew didn’t want to give up ceiling height, so he stripped the floors instead. To Jonathan’s cha-
grin, he also threw in plans for a finished basement.
“Your ideas are good. It just makes me sweat,” Jonathan tells him.
(Take comfort, readers: Even the Property Brothers run behind schedule. The house, scheduled to be completed by late September, was still a work in progress last week.)
Blame their workload. The brothers do roughly 50 renovations a year, providing more than 40 hours of original programming, and are among HGTV’s biggest stars. (For comparison, Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Fixer Upper provided 16 hours in 2017.) They have five series in production, a new book, It Takes Two: Our Story, and — lest we forget — Drew is one of four finalists on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, which crowns a winner Tuesday.
At what point do their schedules become untenable? “Do you want to see our calendars?” Phan asks. They whip out their iPhones and scroll through color-coded iCals. There’s no down time for several weeks.
Like all their efforts, Drew’s Honeymoon House is a family affair. Even Kuznetsov now works for their production company as a producer.
Do they worry their work and per- sonal lives are too intertwined? “Too late!” Phan says.
“I will admit that I’m the worst because I will go work, work, work nonstop,” Drew says. “That’s my biggest struggle: to make sure we’re not always talking shop.”
Scott and Phan want a destination wedding, perhaps in Scotland, although they haven’t picked a date. “We’re hoping for spring,” Drew says.
That means Drew’s Honeymoon House will include some wedding prep, but as of August, Phan hadn’t started shopping for a dress.
For these brothers, little has changed. Even off-camera, the telegenic twins constantly (but good-naturedly) rag on each other.
“I just found out that Drew is only giving her 30% of the walk-in closet,” Jonathan scoffs.
“My shoes are twice the size of hers!” Drew says. “My clothes hang a lot lower.”
Jonathan figures his brother has “180 pairs of shoes in the Vegas house.”
With Drew on the move, is Jonathan getting the wedding bug?
“Nope,” he laughs. “Jacinta and I have only been dating for a year and a half. We are jerks. When Drew had this big elaborate proposal planned, the day before he did it we were going to elope just to mess with him.”
Drew cocks an eyebrow. “In the end, who’s the joke on there?”