The Kansas City Star April 23, 2007

Builder Enjoys his ‘Extreme’ Exposure

Life is good for celebrity KC homebuilder Kevin Green.
Hey, with two “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” projects under his tool belt, why wouldn’t it be? Green’s most recent dream home on the show, for KC’s Jacobo family, airs May 13 on ABC.

“This year was pretty smooth,” Green says. “Great family story.” Not a bad story for Green either – his TV fame seems to be rubbing off. “I was offered to host a show for Martha Stewart two years ago,” he says. “And I do motivational seminars now because of (all) this.”

The reason Green opted not to take the Stewart show deal: “It wasn’t lucrative enough for me,” he says. “But everybody says this is going to be my last year in building, because this (Jacobo) show is going to be big on TV.” Green and the Jacobo family plan to watch the show together at a private party in Harrah’s VooDoo Lounge.

“You never know,” he says. “A lot has come from that show two years ago here, and I think this show is going to be bigger.”

Then there was that one scary moment during the first show. “That was crazy,” Green says. “We had just torn down the house, and ABC called me into the senior producer’s product booth, and I said, ‘What’s worng?’ And she said, ‘We’ve got problems. (KC firefighter) Stephen Johnson doesn’t own this house; he’s a renter.’ And I said, ‘What do we do?’ And she said, ‘We’re leaving. We lost our film permit.’ And literally all these guys started packing stuff up, and they said, “This is a wrap.”

At which point Green was told he would have to rebuild the home. “And I said, ‘Well, I don’t remember what the house was.’ I didn’t have a plan for what I tore down.”

After considering the alternatives – including having to weather a blizzard of local TV news exposes – “I said, ‘I’ll do it,’ Green says. “Then they handed me a document from the city, and on it was handwritten, ‘April Fools.’ “Oh, I freaked – because I was so hyped up.”