“Rural Route Revival” sets up house
Developer-TV producers Lance and Corey Groves excited the curiosity of Olney citizens last week by dropping off a production trailer north of town on State Highway 79 and revealing the latest details of the documentary series they plan to shoot in Olney in the coming weeks.
The Groves brothers, who grew up in Graham and work as building contractors at Possum Kingdom Lake, plan to use Olney as the setting for a “Fixer Upper”-style show about renewing rural towns in Texas. It will likely air on a major streaming channel later this year or in early 2024, Lance Groves told attendees at the Olney Chamber of Commerce lunch meeting last Tuesday.
They break ground on the first home on Oak Street this week. “If they’re successful it’s going to solve one of our major problems, that’s housing, and give us wonderful publicity,” Mayor Rue Rogers said. Mayor Rogers said the last new construction in Olney took place in 2015.
Lance Groves told the rapt lunch crowd at First Baptist Church of Olney that he and his brother are consulting on the project with their cousin, Russell Wayne Groves, director of the 2022 Netflix documentary “Facing Nolan,” and that residents should expect to see a camera crew or two walking around town starting in a couple of weeks.
The brothers, who work at their family’s 60-year-old construction company Groves PK, said the initial idea for rehabbing rundown small-town housing came from their own problems finding local workers for construction jobs at Possum Kingdom Lake.
“Possum Kingdom Lake is not full of a lot of fulltime residents. We were trying to find a way to build houses for our guys,” Lance Groves said, adding that they had been priced out of every market they tried until they came to Olney, which was having trouble offloading about 40 foreclosed lots from its property rolls when the Groves came calling.
The brothers aim to build “every house in Olney, Texas at cost,” and to reap any profit from the television show, he said. They are calling in favors from their PK clients, including executives from homebuilding giant D.R. Horton of Arlington and famed architect Nunzio DiSantis, known for his swanky resorts such as Las Ventanas al Paraiso in Los Cabos.
Each season of the show, “Rural Route Revival,” will feature four episodes, he said. The first episode will introduce viewers to Olney and recount how a random encounter with Young County Judge Win Graham at the County Courthouse led to a meeting with Mayor Rogers and Mayor Pro Tem Tom Parker, and the tour of the city’s inventory of foreclosed lots. The Groves have purchased one lot and plan to buy at least nine more, Lance Groves said.
The second episode will feature animated scenes, already in production, detailing Olney’s problems with its water infrastructure and with providing housing to its bustling workforce. The last two episodes will follow the brothers as they build the homes. “There’s a bunch of people who love life and love each other [in Olney] and we are all about that,” Lance Groves said.
The brothers have recruited Arizona Cardinals Quarterback Daniel “Colt” McCoy, who grew up in Tuscalosa, Texas, as executive producer and to provide the show’s voiceovers. They also have licensed the song “940” from local musician Race Ricketts, as the theme song for the Olney series, Lance Groves said.
The homes will be based on five plans supplied by D.R. Horton for three- and four-bedroom family homes of 1,200 to 1,800 square feet that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, Lance Groves said. The houses will be designed to fit well into the established Olney neighborhoods where they are located, he said.
The total cost of the project will be approximately $4.2 million by the time all 10 homes are built, Lance Groves said.
“I hope you’re proud of what we do,” he said. “You will have $35,000 to $40,000 in equity from Day One. The idea is, if you’ve got a full-time job you can afford one of these houses. We want to give the blue-collar man the chance to buy a house and have a family.”