By India McCarty
HOME TOWN fans got an update on the fate of Erin and Ben Napier’s latest project, the Heirloom Hotel, following the tragic fire that took place just before its grand opening.
“Here we go. Again,” Josh Nowell, one of the people behind the hotel’s renovation and planned opening, posted to the hotel’s Instagram account. “Keep Building.”
Related: HGTV’s Erin and Ben Napier Ask for Prayer After Devastating Fire: ‘God Has a Plan’
In the video, Nowell said, “We’re about to tear out everything that we spent a year and a half to build. The good news is, it’s a lot easier to tear it out than it is to build it.”
Another post reads, “A long way to go. I’m glad for my old friend to help carry this load,” sharing Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 — “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!”
“It’s never easy to start over, maybe even harder the second time, but we believe this town and these people are worth every ounce of our effort,” the crew working on the hotel wrote on Instagram.
The Napiers were planning to produce a show surrounding the renovation of the Heirloom Hotel. In an August Instagram post, Erin told fans, “NEW SHOW ALERT! Inn This Together: wherein our best friends are crazy enough to buy a long vacant cornerstone building in downtown Laurel and convert it into a boutique hotel, @theheirloom.us with @scotsmanusa US-made-only kitchen store on the first floor. We’ll help and y’all can watch in 2026 on @hgtv.”
However, just one week later, Erin notified fans that the Heirloom Hotel had caught on fire.
“Praise God, no one was inside,” she wrote on Instagram. “We held each other and watched while the brave fire fighters from the Laurel FD worked for hours to get it under control. Today feels like a funeral. But I know these people. They won’t give up here.”
She continued, “I don’t know what will happen next or if you’ll ever get to see this @hgtv show now. I don’t know much of anything. Pray for my friends and family, please. It is hard to explain how this reverberates through our town and its progress in many ways. But I know God has a plan for this setback. He always knows the way, even when we don’t.”
The Heirloom Hotel suffered a major setback, but it looks like the people who put their hearts and souls into renovating it are ready to do it again and just “keep building.”
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