The Broadbent Family

Broadbent Family
Season 2, episode 10
Recap by J.G. Bird
December 12, 2004

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has matured in the span of its two seasons. The design team has grown quite adept at stepping back and letting a family’s own dignity shine for the cameras. The Broadbent family is one of the strongest stories ABC has brought to air. Patricia Broadbent took her compassion as a social worker to a higher level than most feel capable. She is the mother to three adopted girls each living HIV positive. Haida was her first girl, adopted as a baby. Tests determined the abandoned baby as HIV positive, which started Patricia on a crusade to know more about HIV and to reach out to educate others about acceptance. She adopted more girls who happened to be HIV positive, and has also brought into her home, twelve-year old “Trish” and more recently, Shanna, 16. When Patricia Broadbent received a diagnosis of cancer earlier this year, she began focusing on how to keep living, plus keep her girls together and provided for. The Broadbent’s are a positive family beyond compare.

Preston, Michael, Paul, Constance and Ty come to the rescue to change the North Las Vegas cinderblock cracker box of a home the Broadbent’s live in to a fashionable mansion. Boxing announcer, Michael Buffer kicks off the demolition in his trademark way, “Let’s get Ready to…Crumble!” Meanwhile, Preston “Pugilistic” Sharp and Paul “De Hammer” DiMeo provide sideline “blow-by-blow” commentary. Double dirt movers finish off the Broadbent house. Insight into the Extreme Makeover rapid builds comes from shots of the cement mixer rig pouring the foundation. It’s less than two hours to start framing from the time KB Homes’ large volunteer crew began the cement pouring. Constance noted there were 150 framers working the project, although the Sears sponsored commercial dedicated to the Broadbent’s “welcome home” only credited a crew of 111. I don’t know if that’s just the number they typically plan for and add to in reality, as needed, or what. The scale of the new house became immediately obvious compared to the size of the original home.

The home’s new layout is to be like a Tuscan villa with enough square footage to keep these girls and their mother together in comfort. Problems like the storage of medication (which must be separate from food preservation) are thought out by doing the unconventional, like placing a half-size fridge in each of the girl’s closets. Of course, all this is going on as the Broadbent family relaxes at Beaches, a family resort in Jamaica. The design provides some Vegas scale and “snaz” by having a large grotto constructed around the new pool and spa area.

Michael gets to shop a Sears Grand (Home Improvement, Furniture and all the other Sears departments rolled into one). Ty puts a personal priority on mom’s room. Paul focuses on the girls’ bedrooms. Haida is getting a dance club room; Trish, a classical music-themed room, and Shanna, a tie-dyed 60’s Flower Power room. Camp Heartland for children living with HIV and AIDS provides a small crew of children for the tie dying projects to fill Shanna’s new room.


Michael and Ty visit Elton John and send a video to the family with a quick cameo riff by Elton John on his own “My Song” on the piano. That same piano, he signs, and has it sent off with his good wishes, to be placed in the Broadbent home.

If you are a Ty Pennington fan, and taped this episode, I’d say it’s worth keeping for Day 6 footage. What can we do new with the megaphone? Dress Ty as Elvis, of course! Whereas, I usually have berated the megaphone hijinks, I laughed all the way through this time. No fooling around near the family at reveal time, however. It’s part of what I noted earlier as maturing of the show and cast. There is a felt level of respect for this family. Ty seems most careful to keep soft-spoken and subdued in showing the family their new house.

There’s extreme volume and height highlighted in this home. A 27 foot vault is the highest ceiling the team has put in one of their renovations. It’s a nice place for a chandelier, otherwise, I’ve never cared for this whole cathedral ceiling feature that seems to be in every new home, extreme or not. There’s so much space in the new living room that you hope the girls have plenty of friends to invite over regularly. The girls and Patricia are not shy about expressing wonder and joy over their new kitchen too. Even more exciting is the loft above the great room. It has been set up as a wide art studio, suitable for Patricia’s talents in pottery and oil painting to be practiced with her daughters.

Each girl has a signature room. Haida’s has the most pop with the lighted dance platform and overhead disco ball. The musically talented Trish has room with unique lines: an acoustic arch, additional instruments, like a new cello, and the side tables with violin-body accents. I liked Shanna’s room most. The walls were a blue-violet tie-dyed pattern except for one alcove painted straight baby blue that was magnetic and covered with larger than usual magnetic poetry word strips. There’s Patricia’s room last, and even her girls, having already seen their rooms, comment that it is the best, and so right for their mother. Light yellow oversized chair and muted green bedspread pick up on the wood paneled accents in the bed alcove. It’s a little Asian fusion and I’m starting to really see Ty’s stylistic touches. Patricia is astonished at the master bath having not only a spa tub and a shower, but a fireplace.

In the backyard, the pool area is lighted and shows like a luxury resort cabana. I think the girls were peeking into a towel warmer, not the usual backyard grill. On to the garage - There’s a Ford vehicle in that garage, don’t you know? It was a red Freestar or Freestyle, I haven’t learned the difference yet, but better for this family, it gets hand controls for immediate functionality for Patricia. Chemotherapy can numb her feet to a debilitating level it’s noted. Bruce Karatz, CEO of KB Homes caps off the episode with the revelation that Mrs. Broadbent’s mortgage will be torn up, so a mortgage payment will be one less thing to worry about. With all the love in this family, you want to believe that only the best is possible for them from now on.

The Los Angeles broadcast of ABC’s eleven o’clock news this night featured the Home Makeover reveal for a family in South Los Angeles. The episode will air in February. In it, we will learn more about the life of Rodney Anderson, paralyzed in a shooting 4 years ago, his parents and siblings, and the new beginnings for him and his fiancé in their newly-built adjoining home.