Mentor Alison Victoria poses with Ben and Pete in their winning main suite, as seen on Battle on the Beach, Season 3.

BY ALEXANDRIA

BOURNONVILLE

Journal Staff Writer

ISHPEMING– Two Upper Peninsula residents are being featured on national television, bringing some well-needed attention to the area.

Ishpeming High School and Northern Michigan University alumnus Ben Argall flexed his house improvement skills on HGTV’s show “Battle on the Beach.”

The show features three skilled teams who renovate identical beach-front properties with help from experts.

Through Argall Real Estate Group, the Ishpeming-born broker has helped countless local residents purchase and improve their new homes. He currently owns NextHome Superior Living and sells in the West end of Marquette County.

Argall, who often posts pictures of his work on his Instagram account, caught the attention of the HGTV casting director years ago. According to the Ishpeming broker, she had been contantly attemping to get him onto one of their shows.

“In October, she checked in again and said I needed to find a partner to interview for her pitch,” Argall stated. “I immediately thought of Pete for so many reasons.”

Pete Meldrum, who has 20 years of experience in residential construction work and remodeling, is from Marquette. He has a wide range of skills: bathrooms, tilework, decks, windows, doors, kitchens, roofs and much more.

With the help of Meldrum, the pair competed against two other teams in weekly renovation challenges in three beachside homes in Alabama. Throughout the experience, they were coached by HGTV regular Alison Victoria of “Windy City Rehab.”

“Intense” was Argall’s choice of descriptor about the show. “There was over 50 members of the production to keep things going,” he said. “We had our own camera guy, sound guy and field producers and assistants…the days were long, usually set time was 8:15 a.m. and tools were down by 5:45 p.m. add on an hour of travel time a day. It was exhausting.”

Meldrum described his role on the show as the one “doing the work.” According to him, “Ben did most of the designing. I put it together.”

Argall struggled with several parts of the process: sticking to the strict budget, having the nearest hardware store 40 minutes away, providing extensive shopping lists to the production crew and the time constraints.

Despite all the hard work and long days that went into the production, Argall was thankful for those who made the experience better.

“I definitely got comfortable on camera,” he said, “because I knew Matthew, who was behind the camera. Eduardo, our sound guy…was so kind….We were in such good hands with (the) production.”

Meldrum agreed with Argall. He said, “The filming process on the show was a lot of fun. I feel like we lucked out because everyone on the film crew was super nice and our director was really helpful.”

Reflecting upon the experience, Argall said, “It was incredible to be able to renovate the houses here and hear the ocean, see dolphins swimming, and to see the sunsets at the end of the day. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“I’m so glad we did it,” Meldrum said. “It was a ton of work for the both of us but we had a lot of fun as well. The U.P. is full of hard-working people and I hope that is (on) display in the show.”

To watch their experience and see who wins the competition, new episodes of the show will come out at 9 p.m. Sundays on HGTV and are available to stream on Max.

Alexandria Bournonville can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 506. Her email address is abournonville@miningjournal.net.