Master Builders of Iowa

ABC’s Emmy-winning hit show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" selected a Northeast Iowa family to feature on its award-winning show that changes the lives of families and inspires remarkable community support. Each week, the show travels across the country building a new home for a deserving family.

MBI member Larson Construction Co., Inc., of Independence, Iowa, was selected as the builder for the project. Larson Construction Co., Inc. is a family-owned business that has been in the construction industry since the 1960’s and encompasses both general contracting for commercial and industrial buildings and project management.

On Friday, January 6th, “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” traveled to Fayette County, Iowa to surprise the Gibbs family, and musician Bret Michaels appeared in this episode. Audrey Gibbs is a mother, a widow, a farm owner and a maternal optimist who won’t let anything stop her from raising her six children, not even her blindness and her battle with a potentially fatal condition. Seven months after her husband died, Audrey had a brain aneurism that affected a quarter of her brain – leaving her legally blind. The doctors cannot say if she is going to lose her sight completely or even if she is going to live or die. Audrey has always been pragmatic and has no time for self-pity. She is passionately committed to doing whatever it takes to raise her kids. Realizing she could not continue working as a cosmetologist, she decided to attend massage therapy classes, as she knew it was a career she could still practice after losing her sight. However, Audrey does worry about what will happen to her kids, should the worst happen. The Gibbs family own and live on a farm which they rent portions of to local farmers for additional income. Their farmhouse is in need of significant repair, with no working toilet, a ceiling that’s caving in and a layout that doesn’t work for the family at all– especially for Audrey, if she loses her eyesight completely. The “EM:HE” design team and Larson Construction Co., Inc. had just seven days to build a brand new home for the Gibbs. The family was whisked away on a dream vacation to Boca Raton Resort & Club, a Waldorf Astoria Resort, while “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” team leader Ty Pennington, designers Paul DiMeo, Tracy Hutson, Sabrina Soto, Jeff Dye and local builders Larson Construction Company, Inc. built the structure.

The heart-tugging original feel-good series “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” concluded its 9th and final season on ABC this year.  During its run, the quintessential feel-good reality show transformed the lives of thousands of deserving families and galvanized communities and businesses to help their neighbors in need. The series won multiple Emmys for Outstanding Reality Program, received six Emmy nominations, won two People’s Choice Awards and an NAACP Image Award, as well as many additional honors.

Congratulations to Larson Construction Co., Inc. on making the Gibbs family’s dreams come true!