Stuti Gokhale
‘Ugliest House in America’ is a home renovation reality show on HGTV that features actor and comedian Marietta Sangai Sirleaf AKA Retta touring twelve houses across the country with faulty designs and questionable interiors. These houses, nominated by the owners themselves, are failures in terms of both aesthetics and functionality. After screening each house personally, Retta declares an ultimate winner who gets a fabulous $150,000 renovation for their home by Chicago-based renovation expert Alison Victoria.
Retta’s witty style of presentation adds a humorous twist to the reviews she does of each house. Each episode showcases three houses with appalling characteristics that are either a result of botched renovations or poor real estate bargains. The properties featured in ‘Ugliest House in America’ don’t just surprise the viewers but also give them an idea about what not to do with their own abodes. If your curiosity is piqued about the various bizarre locations where this show is filmed, we’ve got it all covered for you. Let’s dive in!
Ugliest House in America Filming Locations
‘Ugliest House in America’ was filmed in several parts of the USA, including the states of Minnesota and Oklahoma. The twelve houses are spread out all over the country from coast to coast, and the production team shifted filming sites over time. With regard to the different houses, Retta stated, “I am certain these were 12 of the ugliest houses in America. Trust. I had to walk through them all.” Principal photography for the show was carried out in the summer of 2021. Here are more details on the filming.
Blue Earth, Minnesota
The picturesque city of Blue Earth in Faribault County, Minnesota, is one of the filming locations for ‘Ugliest House in America.’ The cast and crew filmed at a property that used to be a funeral home on Sixth Street. The main house has four bedrooms, which is the current residence of Noel and Renee Johnson and their four kids. The couple bought the property without much idea about what they wished to do with it.
According to Noel, the embalming room of the funeral home still had all the equipment when they acquired the house, thus making Renee rather concerned. He even said that the show’s production team had to use the basement, priorly used to store caskets, as Retta’s makeup room. The Johnsons decided to convert the former embalming room into a laundry room and turned the vast space for holding funerals and visitations into a big playroom for their kids.
St. Cloud, Minnesota
The city of St. Cloud also serves as a filming location for the show. The strange house in question is the Poseidon House, located on County Road 1. The massive 3,676-square-foot house has a giant Poseidon statue in the driveway, a cave shower that can be shared by four people. Each room in the five-bedroom, three-bathroom home is customized with underwater scenery that even includes a giant stuffed marlin fish.
According to records, the homeowner Kourtney Bradford bought the house for $495,700 in September 2020. The house’s initial listing price in 2017 was reportedly stated as $1.2 million, but over time the value depreciated.
Tulsa, Oklahoma
The production team of ‘Ugliest House in America’ filmed at a 1960’s style house in Tulsa, a city located on the Arkansas River in Oklahoma. With a generally forested terrain surrounded by hills, Tulsa was one of the largest contributors to the country’s oil industry. It is known for its rich art deco architecture. The city also houses various art museums as well as renowned ballet and opera companies.
Read More: Where Is HGTV’s Houses With History Filmed?
