HGTV’s New Show ‘Renovation Aloha’ Brings a ‘Message of Hope’ to Hawaiians (Exclusive)

Married home renovators Tristyn and Kamohai Kalama are taking on some of the most dilapidated homes in Hawaii on HGTV’s new home renovation show Renovation Aloha. Prior to the Feb. 20 premiere, the couple, who were both born and raised on the island of O’ahu, opened up to PopCulture.com about bringing “a message of hope to local people” through their new series. 

“We live in one of the most expensive places right here in Hawaii. Our median home price – it fluctuates, but it’s over $1 million,” Kamohai told PopCulture. “So, these properties are expensive to get into. We are a story of local people, born and raised here, that were struggling and found a way to be able to not only stay here but rise here. So being able to renovate these houses and control the real estate, we get to decide what we do with that real estate and for what we sell it for.”

In the first of eight episodes, Kamohai and Tristyn take on renovating a multi-generational house that will allow a family to share the cost of living and get their foot in the door to build appreciation and wealth in their family. The first home the Kalamas were able to sell off-market, they sold to one of Kamohai’s childhood friends. “That feeling was something we were like, we’re never going to stop doing this,” Tristyn shared.

“I think [the show is] being a message of hope to local people, that homeownership and thriving in an expensive market is attainable,” she continued. “We hate the fact that the cost of living here is so expensive. … If we can be a helping hand to help more local people get into homes and have that be a building block for wealth for them, there’s nothing more rewarding to us for that.”

The real estate industry runs deep in the Kalama family, which includes 87 first cousins, many of whom are in the construction industry. It’s all necessary when it comes to taking on such challenging properties – which Kamohai looks at more as “solving problems” than renovating houses. “In our industry, and especially in our business, the house comes second. The seller of the house always comes first,” he explained. “So most times these sellers are reaching out to us with very precarious situations. They inherited a house … the house is all broken down and they need to sell it within three months. You know what I mean?”

“So we will look at being able to solve a problem and then we go out to the house,” he continued. “So yes, the houses are very, very bad. We didn’t start out doing the craziest houses in Hawaii, we took it slow. We started with one house, we did three houses the next year, and then we built off of it. So, it really comes down to that. We’re solving problems and then the houses are secondary.”

Renovation Aloha premieres Tuesday, Feb. 20, at 9 p.m. ET on HGTV.