Heavy/HGTV/YouTube Ben and Erin Napier of "Home Town"
Eight years after the pilot of Erin and Ben Napier‘s show, “Home Town,” first aired on HGTV, the couple will reach a major television milestone on February 4, 2024, as the 100th episode of the series.
That’s an achievement only reached by the most popular shows in history, such as long-running series like “The West Wing,” “Gilmore Girls,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “Friends,” and “Full House,” per Us Weekly.
It’s an especially impressive feat given that every episode of “Home Town” includes a major renovation, which takes months to complete. In fact, the 100th episode of “Home Town,” Erin recently told USA Today, features their biggest renovation to date, as they transform a 5,000-square-foot downtown loft.
When the Napiers wrapped filming the monumental episode in April 2023, Erin wrote on Instagram that they held a party with nearly everyone who’d been part of the show, from homeowners to crew members, to honor the fact that “only 2.5% of shows make 100 episodes.”
“Hundreds of faces,” she wrote. “Every homeowner from 7 seasons, our crew and producers and @hgtv were there and it felt like a second wedding for us. To be in a very crowded room and know every single face and have clear memories of them all is overwhelming.”
After having a few months to reflect on their major milestone before the 100th episode aired, Erin told HGTV the accomplishment feels “unbelievable” as they shared their favorite moments over the years.
Ben Napier Says He’s Grateful People ‘Keep Watching’ as Ratings Continue to Rise
Based in the Napier’s actual hometown of Laurel, Mississippi, “Home Town” has been a ratings juggernaut for HGTV since it first aired on January 24, 2016. The couple and their friends have revitalized the community by restoring dozens of old homes and opening multiple businesses. including Erin’s candle shop, “The Scent Library.”
And the show’s popularity only keeps growing. Since kicking off the second half of “Home Town’s” seventh season in early January, HGTV said in a recent press release that the show continues to deliver “stellar ratings.” For instance, the January 14 episode “boasted triple-digit gains of 115 percent among Adults 25-54” over the prior six weeks, with more than three-million viewers.
“Somehow, against the odds, ‘Home Town’ is one of those long-running shows that has been on through different seasons of a life, and that is so rare,” Erin told HGTV during a recent interview with her and Ben. “There may be some kid who was in sixth grade when they watched our pilot episode and now they are a sophomore in college who watches it on trips home. Unbelievable.”
Ben, meanwhile, said hitting the milestone feels in some ways like “just another day at work.”
“We try to not make this job feel any different from every other job out there,” he said. “That being said, 100 episodes of a television show feels like a big milestone. We are just incredibly grateful that people are still watching!”
In a blog post that Erin wrote for the Hooked on Houses site just before their show debuted in 2016, she said “Fixer Upper” stars Chip and Joanna Gaines had been incredibly welcoming and helpful, especially during a trip to Texas after they finished filming the “Home Town” pilot the year before.
“One day ended with a 2-hour ride around Waco with Chip,” she wrote at the time. “We talked a lot about how fortunate we all feel, even though Ben and I are still nobodies with just the hope of helping save our town.”
Ben & Erin Napier Recall Their Most Memorable Moments of Filming ‘Home Town’
Talking to HGTV, both Erin and Ben said that after bringing so many homes back to life, their favorite renovation of them all came in season 6, when they revealed their second home, located on the outskirts of Laurel.
“We call it a vacation house because we never leave Laurel,” Ben told Heavy in 2022.
The couple still has their other home in the center of town, so Erin told HGTV the renovated brick Tudor, which is surrounded by woods, still feels like a getaway for them.
Meanwhile, Erin said the most emotional episode for her came during season 4, when they turned a Laurel home into a restaurant called the Bird Dog Cafe, as seen in the video above.
“I learned my grandmother used to live in that house,” she reminded HGTV. “At the time, she was in assisted living unable to speak after a series of strokes, and I wanted so badly to hear this from her. I wanted to know so much more, but it was all locked inside her forever.”
For Ben, the most emotional episode aired just weeks ago on January 21, he told HGTV. It was the one in which he cried on-camera after learning that the local community college where he and Erin first met, Jones College, will soon launch the Erin and Ben Napier School of Design and Building Arts.
By the time season 7 wraps up in the spring, “Home Town” will have aired 110 episodes. As for how many more the Napiers hope to film, they told USA Today they stopped planning their future long ago.
“We used to make plans, but none of it turned out, not one single thing we planned,” Erin said. “I was going to design magazines and books, and I wasn’t worried about ever having kids, and he was going to be an attorney.”
“And a politician,” Ben interjected, to which Erin quipped, “How horrible.”