SEASON ONE SMITH LAKE, AL

Season One
Four Friends. One Summer. One Sweet Home.

Four friends bought a piece of land on Smith Lake with one summer and a number they swore they wouldn't cross. What they built was the easy part. What they bet was twenty years of friendship — the kind where nobody keeps score. That's easy to say before there's money in it, a deadline, and four opinions about one staircase. Some of it went the way they planned.

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The house nearing completion on the Smith Lake lot

Premiering 2026

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First look at the trailer, the premiere date, and the parts of the build nobody planned for.

The empty lot at Smith Lake before anything was built

01 — THE LAND

It all began with a piece of land,
and a dream to make something special.

Two of the friends floating in the lake

02 — THE IDEA

Like most bad ideas, it started in the water.

Two of the friends out on the lake

02 — THE IDEA

An idea between friends quickly becomes their biggest gamble yet.

Together, they set out to build a million-dollar dream home on Alabama's Smith Lake before summer's end, betting that years of friendship are enough to see them through.

The cleared slope with a survey line run across it

03 — WHAT WE THOUGHT

We bought the land without a plan. It didn't take long to realize we'd need one — fast. What followed tested twenty years of friendship, one new problem at a time.

What could go wrong?

Rendering of the finished Smith Lake house

04 — THE HOUSE

3,800 square feet on some of the best water on Smith Lake.

Four bedrooms. Three and a half baths. A wall of glass pointed straight at the lake. We had until the end of summer.

SMITH LAKE, ALABAMA · 3,800 SQ FT · 4 BED / 3.5 BATH · ONE SUMMER

The four of them walking up to the house, one with an arm around another

05 — THE SUMMER

Some of it went the way we planned.

The framing going up on the cleared lot

06 — NEW CHAPTER

Other parts felt like a disaster.

The four friends over the plans

07 — THE FRIENDS

Four friends, one summer, and just enough
confidence to be dangerous.

07 — THE FRIENDS

THE FRIENDS

Derek Miller

DEREK MILLER

Wants it bigger.

Every meeting has a moment where the group settles on something reasonable and Derek asks whether reasonable is really what they came here to do. He's responsible for at least three of the best things in this house and at least two of the most expensive. Some overlap.

Josh Hemingway

JOSH HEMINGWAY

The one who said it out loud first.

Josh has made a career out of pointing a camera at other people's good ideas. This is the first time the idea was his, which means it's also the first time he couldn't edit around the parts that didn't work. He narrates the series, mostly because nobody else volunteered.

Shannon Fondren

SHANNON FONDREN

The Cullman local.

Shannon knows Cullman, knows the lake, and knew most of the people who ended up working on this house before anyone called them. When the other three flew home, he stayed. He filmed a lot of it on his phone, which is how we have footage of the things nobody planned to film.

James “Marko” Markovits

JAMES “MARKO” MARKOVITS

Goes by Marko. Solves it a different way.

Marko is the one who looks at a problem for a long time without saying anything, and then says the thing nobody else considered. It is occasionally infuriating and usually correct. He has strong opinions about doors.

The finished house from above

08 — WATCH

Sweet Homes premieres in 2026 on

HGTV GO Destination America
A boat wake on dark water

09 — WHAT'S NEXT

Season Two is already underway.

A new place. A new house. A new set of problems we haven't run into yet. We'll tell you where as soon as we can.