• History Channel to debut Baylor alum’s series, ‘Lone Star Restoration’

    Lone Star Restoration

    First, there was Chip and Joanna. Then there was Clint Harp. Now, Brent Hull, BA ’89, is joining the increasingly crowded field of “Baylor graduates with national TV shows about home design.”

    Hull’s take is a little different from the “Fixer Upper” approach, however. The first clue is the network airing his new show; “Lone Star Renovation” debuts tonight at 9 p.m. CT on History, not HGTV. (See a sneak peek below.)

    That’s because Hull’s approach is less “tear out the old, bring in the new,” and more preservation and restoration. The eight-episode first season will focus on Hull’s work around Texas, from an 1870s barn in Desoto to a classic red railroad caboose in Rusk. As the show’s website puts it, Hull seeks to “resurrect the lost stories of architecture.”

    “When you see the way houses were built 250 years ago and then the way they’re built today, it’s like night and day,” Hull told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Everything has changed. The design has changed, the craftsmanship has changed, the materials have changed — and none of it for the better. We need to rethink the current culture of the quick build and cheap craftsmanship. Our homes should be built to last and our homes should have character.”

    After majoring in history and English at Baylor, Hull spent two years in Boston studying preservation carpentry at one of the nation’s oldest trade schools. Then he and his wife, Krissy, BSED ’90, moved back to the Metroplex, where Hull has built his preservation business, Hull Historical, over the past two decades. His resume already includes work on the Texas State Capitol, the Tarrant County Courthouse, and a former DuPont estate in Delaware, plus a book, Building a Timeless House in an Instant Age. Now, the entire nation gets to see what this Baylor Bear can do.

    Sic ’em, Brent!