“Murder House Flip,” the home renovation show where two designers makeover portions of properties once at the center of notorious crimes, returned to Roku this month for its second season, aimed at helping homeowners reclaim their spaces.
Some of the homeowners the show features in Season 2 knew upon purchase the history of their property, but others – due to a statute of limitations on disclosures – found out later and, therefore, welcomed the idea of a TV show makeover team giving their spaces a new look.
“We want the homeowners to find peace and tranquility following the horrible crime that occurred in their house,” executive producer Josh Berman said. “We also like to speak with neighbors to find out what it’s like living next to the ‘murder home.’ When we hear that neighbors literally avoid walking by a home or that kids are scared to play near the ‘murder house,’ we know that our show has a real opportunity to help not only the homeowners but the community.”
On this season of the show, designers Mikel Welch, who is based in New York City, and Sarah Listi, who hails from Houston, Texas, visited several properties, including one in Santa Barbara, California, where decades before, the Golden State Killer committed a double murder.
As the show revealed, the homeowner – a single mom – learned the property she bought for her children to grow up in was a “murder house” sometime after they moved in.
“I think both of us felt really horrible that she had no idea. She was doing renovations on the home a few weeks after closing, and that’s how she found out,” Listi said. “But there is like, a statute of limitations, right? So they have to notify a potential purchaser but not if it’s been so many years,” Listi said (the murder in the SB home happened in 1979).
To help give her home a rebirth of sorts, Welch and Listi renovated the master bedroom, completely changing the sliding back door, putting wood paneling inside the room, and making it look different from top to bottom.
“Our goal is to transform the space because we almost feel like the house has been stripped away from them and it’s been given to the tragedy,” Welch said. “And so when we go in and revamp that space, the biggest payoff for Sarah and I is always going to be the response on the family’s faces.
“It’s a tricky job,” he continued. “Psychology is brought into it because we’re not just designing the room, putting some pretty wallpaper and an Eames chair in the room and saying, ‘Oh gosh, enjoy your new space.’ No, we have to go in there and come up with creative ways to make the space feel like it’s completely different. So we work hard for five days. Sarah’s, tearing down walls and resurfacing fireplaces, all for the sake of making that homeowner feel like when they walk into that space, we want them to be disoriented; we want them to say like, ‘Wait a minute.’ … That’s the best feeling.”
Listi said that as a mom herself, she thought about the goals of the families living in the homes they were renovating – with some wanting to start families or welcome larger family gatherings – and that really brought home the purpose of their renovations.
“There’s all these things that you imagine of like, ‘That’s your space; that’s your homebase,’ and trying to imagine not feeling like it’s yours or not feeling comfortable, not feeling at ease,” she said of how she approaches the homes. “I always feel like that moment where they walk in and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, it’s mine!’ – I cry in more than one episode. … The emotion of it is a lot for me. It was always a lot for me because that part was amazing.”
During Season 1 of the show, which originally aired on Quibi, it was harder to find places to renovate, but Berman said since the show debuted (it moved from Quibi to Roku, which greenlit Season 2), people who live in “murder houses” have sought him out.
“For Season 1, before the show aired, several homeowners denied our request to discuss a makeover. However, for Season 2, many of the homeowners were already aware of the show, so they were excited when we approached them. Interestingly, I’ve also received personal messages on Twitter and Facebook from homeowners requesting that we makeover their ‘murder homes,’” he said.
Perhaps another reason families want the home makeover and that new start is because some of the homeowners have told Welch and Listi during downtime in filming about how their properties are regularly gawked at.
“They’re telling us stories and telling us how people drive past their houses constantly. And it’s kind of a paparazzi show that they didn’t sign up for,” he said.
Season 2 of “Murder House Flip” is currently streaming on Roku.