When HGTV’s “House Hunters” contacted Wilmington Realtor Cheyney Treherne looking for a home buyer for the long-running reality television series, he just happened to have the perfect person with a built-in storyline.
Treherne had already been house-hunting with an old high school friend, Alyssa Tarantino, who he graduated from St. Georges Technical High School with in 2015.
Producers were all in and the result aired last week as Treherne of Wilmington-based Madison Real Estate showed Tarantino, then 25, homes across Wilmington in three neighborhoods: Triangle, Trinity Vicinity and along Bancroft Parkway.
It was filmed across four weekends in the spring with 8-hour days dedicated to shooting scenes at the trio of homes.
“I feel like we’re back on a filed trip,” Treherne cracked on the show as he drove Tarantino around from house to house.
On the hunt for older Wilmington home with character under $400,000
The episode entitled “Hundred Year Old Home Or Bust” tracks Treherne, Tarantino and her sister Alex as they hunt for an older home with character under $400,000 for a data analyst.
“I do love vintage, antique things,” Tarantino said on the episode. “A lot of my friends tell me that my clothes look like they’re from the ’70s. That’s not intentional, but I guess that’s just what I gravitate toward.”
After moving back into her family’s Middletown home after getting her degree at Rutgers University in New Jersey, she was ready to strike out on her own. With her job based in New Jersey, the commute was becoming tiresome.
So she got to work with Treherne and looked at many houses over several months before narrowing it down to the three seen on the program. Her sister Alex is an architectural historian by training, so she also helped advise.
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Tarantino envisioned a late Victorian-era home with hardwood floors, woodwork detail and at least a half-bath on first floor so guests didn’t have to go upstairs. Her goal was to be able to host her family for their annual “Cuba Day,” when they all get together to eat Cuban food.
“At this point, I’ve probably seen every house in Wilmington and it’s been driving me a little bit crazy. I’m starting to panic about it,” she said on the show.
The three choices: Triangle, Trinity Vicinity & Bancroft Parkway
The three homes all had pluses and minuses, just like in most house-hunts:
House #1: In the city’s Triangle neighborhood near Salesianum School, this 1905-built end unit townhome was listed for $299,900. The 1,400-square-foot house had three bedrooms and 1-1/2 bathrooms with a lot of what Tarantino was looking for − original molding and woodwork with bay windows in the master bedroom. It also had central air conditioning, a newer roof, first floor power room and a small low-maintenance backyard with a concrete patio and gravel around a small tree. The biggest downside was a small all-white kitchen, which would require a remodel.
House # 2: This $319,900 townhome was situated on brick road in Trinity Vicinity, a neighborhood loaded with Victorian-era homes and located off I-95 just south of Delaware Avenue. The four-bedroom, 2-1/2 bathroom home covered 1,850 square feet with an enclosed front porch. While the kitchen was larger with an island, there still wasn’t much counter space. Tarantino liked the powder room first floor and bay windows upstairs, but the gray vinyl flooring on the main floor was a major turn off. “It’s a shame that a lot of the character has been removed,” she said during her tour.
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House #3: This four-bedroom twin townhome along Bancroft Parkway near the city’s coveted Highlands neighborhood was filled with the historical charm Tarantino wanted, plus a driveway and garage. The 2,00-square-foot home, built in 1931, had original hardwood floors, but they would need to be refinished. The original banister along stairs to the second floor was right up her alley, but she would have to completely gut out the kitchen, not liking the floors or cabinets. A small yard had a lawn and trees to maintain. A lot of renovations would be needed and it was already going to cost her $339,900 to get the keys.
Her decision
When it came time for her to choose, she went with the home that needed the least amount of work and renovations: the first house featured, located in the Triangle neighborhood.
The 118-year-old home was filled with new utilities ― windows, hot water heater, HVAC system ― and had some of the character she wanted with woodworking details and built-in china cabinets with glass doors in the dining room, giving it a nice touch.
The only problem was that kitchen, which she admitted “is driving me absolutely nuts.”
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As mentioned on the show, she was toying with swapping her kitchen and dining room to give herself a bigger kitchen with more natural light since the dining room has two windows instead of the one in the kitchen.
It’s a project for down the road. But in an interview with DelawareOnline/The News Journal last week after the show aired, she reported that the kitchen has not been the nightmare she was worried about after living there for a couple of months.
“Now that I’ve been in the space for a little while, I’m finding my way and I’m not as annoyed with it as I was before,” she says.
The only other downside was that she got into a bit of a bidding war with other prospective buyers and ended up paying $310,000.
“I was losing houses left and right, including one in [Wilmington’s Flats neighborhood] before the show and I was just devastated,” she says. “So I was like, ‘I swear to God, if lose out again on one of these houses, I’m going to freak.'”
Feeling the pressure: What it’s like being on ‘House Hunters’
For Treherne, it was a stressful search for the real estate agent even before Hollywood arrived.
While working with an old friend to find the right home is a joy, it’s definitely not a client you want to let down in any way. That could make future happy hours a bit awkward for the pair, who first met as freshmen in high school.
“I want to make sure all my clients are happy, but when you’re working with someone you’re so close to, there’s extra pressure to make sure she’s happy. She’s one of my best friends,” she says. “So the fact that they came and filmed it all as well: that definitely was a lot of pressure.”
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He says the owner of his Wilmington Riverfront-based firm broker Traci Madison previously assisted “House Hunters” with an episode of the show, landing a home for a client in Dover for the program. They again reached out earlier this year, leading to Tarantino’s episode.
Treherne was nervous to watch the episode, knowing that hours of footage would be left on the cutting room floor. After commercials, there would only be about 21 minutes left for actual content.
“I had never been on reality TV before and didn’t know what to expect. I thought they might try to twist the narrative or something, but they didn’t. It was very realistic,” he says.
As for Tarantino, she hasn’t been signing any autographs from her 15 minutes of fame, but her loved ones got a kick out of it, calling her a “local celebrity.” She mostly kept it secret, nervous about how she might be made out to look on the show.
“It definitely added stress, but I think it helped having them there because you find yourself talking about the pros and cons out loud a lot and you begin to better understand what matters to you,” she says.
One funny reaction came when a friend just happened to be working out at Planet Fitness when they looked up at the television and there was Tarantino’s familiar face. They snapped a photo and posted it on Instagram.
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“I was like, ‘Oh no. Someone was on the treadmill and they were watching me tour these houses,” she says. “That’s a weird feeling.”
While Tarantino’s episode is not currently scheduled to re-air on HGTV, it is available to stream through the cable channel’s website.
Have a story idea? Contact Ryan Cormier of Delaware Online/The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier) and Twitter (@ryancormier).
