Erin and Ben Napier on the Joys of Small-Town Living

Erin: Hey, Guideposts. We’re Erin and Ben Napier.

Ben: Yeah, we’re the hosts of HGTV’s Home Town, which is shot right here in Laurel, Mississippi. The beautiful thing about Laurel is that it’s this really amazing mix of blue collar and culture and arts that comes together to make something really beautiful, and that’s the thing that’s great about small towns all across America is that every town is individualistic and it’s different, and those differences are what make them special. So you’re not going to get the same thing if you visit some small town in Arkansas that you get in Laurel. You’re going to find something different, but the people will still be there.

Erin: So I grew up here in Laurel, and when we finished college, it felt like a natural thing to just come back home, because we both got job offers here.

Ben: Yeah, I didn’t really grow up anywhere. I mean, I grew up all over. My parents are Methodist preachers, so it was a lot of moving around growing up. And so, you know, when we both finished school and we both got job offers here, it felt like the right thing to do.

Erin: Yeah, because I had a support system here. Ben’s family is all over the state. So it felt good to have a central location that’s kind of between everyone in his family and right here where my family already was.

Ben: Yeah, and so once we got here, we were living in downtown Laurel in an old, historic building, and we both fell in love with the community.

Erin: And we renovated our loft.

Ben: Right, and we love the architecture and the history here. Erin has an art degree. I have a history degree, and so those both played out really well as far as our involvement in the community.

Erin: Like, what skills we could bring to this revitalization that was happening in downtown. And so we renovated our loft, and then we bought this house and we renovated this house. And we put pictures of it on Instagram, and HGTV saw it and they reached out and asked if we’d ever thought about doing TV. So now we take that love for art and historic revitalization, and we put it into helping these families restore old houses in Laurel.

Ben: It’s a really good fit, because the show is about welcoming new people to a small town, and the motor that drives it is historic revitalization—you know, renovating these old homes. And so it’s a fun way to live out our lives and our degrees and our backgrounds, you know.

Erin: And making a huge difference in our city.

Ben: Yeah.