HGTV is very well known for the wide variety of home design and renovation shows it's brought to the public over the years. Fans of creative landscaping, marble countertops, cool kitchen backsplashes, and everything else in the realm of renovation have watched a number of personalities confront design challenges over the decades, frequently to miraculous results. But, the network also runs the Dream Home sweepstakes, which offers fans a chance to enter and win a super fancy house in a wonderful locale, which has been built just for the contest. Designer Brian Patrick Flynn is now opening up about why he thinks the sweepstakes has been so popular.
The network itself has been around since December of 1994, and has been building and offering the HGTV Dream Home to fans for almost as long, with the first contest coming along in 1997. This sweepstakes has become so popular over the years that, in 2012 alone, there were 81 million entries. Brian Patrick Flynn, who's designed six houses for the contest (including the one for 2021), spoke with People recently about the new home he and his team worked on, and when talking about how difficult it was to finish the 2021 house during our current health crisis, brought up why he believes the sweepstakes is still so popular, and said:
I think a lot of us have the same goal. We want to work really hard through our twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, maybe into our mid-sixties, early seventies, and then we all dream of, ‘Hey, we're going to retire. We're going to pick a place that's just totally dreamy. We're going to go and we're going to watch the sunrise and the sunset and take long walks and take life easy.’ So the fact that it's a possibility is amazing. And my job as the designer of the Dream Home is to create a place that has a little bit of something for everyone.
Brian Patrick Flynn makes a very good point when it comes to discussing why the HGTV Dream Home is so immensely popular. Most people dream about the idea of retirement for many years, if not full decades, and the thought of being able to go someplace where we can get away from it all, at least for a bit, and totally relax is usually key to those dreams. The contest offers people an opportunity to do exactly that, without having to go through all of the legwork of finding the perfect location and the perfect home.
As the designer noted, a large part of his job involves making sure that these houses are built to fulfill not only people's fantasies but to address practical issues. While it's a large part of someone's job at HGTV to make sure the location is amazing, Flynn is responsible for giving fans a chance to win a home with as many modern conveniences as possible, with the most dazzling floor plans and details, and enough functionality whether they want to hideout there and truly get away from the world, or spend a lot of time in the home entertaining family and friends.
The HGTV Dream Home 2021 is on the water in Newport, Rhode Island, and fans can enter twice a day, every day, for a shot to win, from 9 a.m. EST on December 28, through until 5 p.m. EST on February 17. To get a look at what entrants can win, viewers can check out the HGTV Dream Home 2021 Special on Friday, January 1, at 8 p.m. EST. For more on what to watch in the coming weeks, be sure to bookmark our guide to winter / spring 2021 premieres!
