Old School HGTV Stars You Totally Forgot About

HGTV first began broadcasting in December 1994, debuting a trailblazing selection of home and garden-themed programming to a national television audience. Initially, the new cable channel's reach was modest, airing to just 6.5 million viewers.

Timing, however, was everything. Just two years before, lifestyle guru Martha Stewart — who'd made waves at bookstores with her 1982 bestseller "Entertaining" — had taken her act to television with the syndicated series "Martha Stewart Living." The popularity of the series made it clear that there was an underserved audience hungering for programming about home decor, gardening, and other lifestyle-related topics, and HGTV's gamble paid off handsomely. By the time HGTV celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2019, viewership had exploded, the network reaching in excess of 100 million households throughout the U.S., with HGTV programming exported to dozens of countries.

Of course, television has changed a lot in the past 30 years, and HGTV has evolved accordingly, from those early series about crafting and redecorating to the renovation competitions and high-stakes house-flipping that characterizes modern-day HGTV — and which has led to some scandalous rumors about HGTV's biggest stars that we can't ignore. Still, viewers who've experienced that evolution firsthand may wonder what ever happened to hosts from the network's halcyon early years. To find out more, keep on reading for a look at some old-school HGTV stars you totally forgot about.

"Decorating Cents" made its HGTV debut in 1997, with host Joan Steffend leading viewers through easy and inexpensive (under $500) remodels, adding bold colors and trendy touches to outdated spaces by encouraging DIY creativity, and emphasizing the impact of a simple coat of paint. After the show ended in 2007, Steffend wrote a few books and launched her own website.

Looking back at those often garish designs, "Decorating Cents" has not aged well. In 2025, comedian Rob Anderson shared vintage clips from the show on TikTok, along with his hilariously snarky comments. In one video, Anderson described "Decorating Cents" as "a hideous design show from the '90s." In another, Anderson quips that, "Every episode, the show takes a pretty boring room, and in under $500 turns it into something only Beetlejuice would love." Meanwhile, in a third video, in which Steffend painted a multicolored faux "rug" onto a hardwood floor, he noted, "This is the color palette of a Red Lobster kids' menu."

When Anderson's clips began going viral, Steffend was surprised to find herself back in the public eye — and the subject of home-decor mockery. "People began asking, "Um ... have you heard what they are saying about the show?"" Steffend told the Twin Cities Pioneer Press, admitting she was initially crestfallen at being the butt of Anderson's jokes. "My first reaction, it was painful," she said. However, she eventually came to see the humor in her new role as a TikTok sensation, and even connected with Anderson. Ultimately, she decided to capitalize on the situation by releasing a line of t-shirts and merch on her website. 

Even the most ardent fans of HGTV may not know that the network's original moniker was the Home, Lawn and Garden Channel. While the lawn part of the name never made the final cut, gardens were actually a big part of HGTV in its early days (although viewers would be hard-pressed to find a whole lot of gardening programming in the current crop of HGTV shows). Arguably, the most popular of these was "Gardening By the Yard," which hit television screens in 1995. At the center of the series was master gardener Paul James, who instructed viewers on how to keep their gardens looking gorgeous. 

When HGTV pulled the plug on the series after 13 seasons, James, unlike some design stars who brutally turned on HGTV, held no hard feelings. ​​"I have no disparaging feelings toward HGTV at all," he said during an appearance on "The Joe Gardener Show" podcast back in 2019. "They were so good to me, they were wonderful. I still know people there that I respect and admire greatly, and I had a good run."

Realizing his time on television had pretty much concluded, James shifted his focus, instead devoting his time to travel, family, and his own personal garden. He does, however, pop up on television every once in a while, such as when he offered gardening tips during a 2022 local news broadcast. 

In 1994, Kitty Bartholomew was tapped by HGTV to host her own interior design show, "Kitty Bartholomew: You're Home." Already a familiar face to viewers from her previous gig on ABC's "The Home Show," she quickly became one of the most recognizable personalities on the network. 

After the series' eight-year run, in 2005 Bartholomew wrote two books, "Kitty Bartholomew's Decorating Style" and "Designer Knitting with Kitty Bartholomew." She went on to make headlines a few years later when she listed her Santa Monica home in 2009, with an asking price of nearly $2.2 million. Bartholomew continued to be sought after for her design skills, her work appearing in magazines such as Elle Decor. She became a favorite guest on talk show queen Oprah Winfrey's daytime show, became a board member for the Housekeeping Channel, and served on the advisory board of the California Design College.

Bartholomew eventually wound up in Ojai, California, where she's taken her talents to the stage by dressing sets for various theatrical productions at the Ojai Art Center Theater. These have included a 2018 production of "Bakersfield Mist" and a 2021 staging of "The Belle of Amherst."

Among the first shows to launch on the fledgling HGTV cable channel was "Room By Room," which premiered way back in 1994. Hosted by Matt Fox and Shari Hiller, the series was a massive hit, running for nearly 14 years to become the longest-running show in TV history to focus on home decorating. It was also groundbreaking, the first time a TV show walked viewers through real-life projects in actual homes. "'Room by Room' was the first show of its type in television history," the pair wrote in their blog. "No other decorating program started with a real situation in a real person's home. No one had ever taken a viewer through the steps of a decorating project, showing the details along the way and then ending with a finished room."

After the show's cancellation in 2006, Fox and Hiller continued to be sought-after designers who appeared regularly at home-improvement shows throughout the U.S. As Fox told The Detroit News, he believes that HGTV has strayed far from its original mandate — and the mission of "Room By Room." "Everything seems so escalated, and a normal person couldn't afford what is shown," he said. "We should go back to being real because people want to do projects on their own."

That original mission, however, continued in their subsequent series for PBS, "Around the House With Matt and Shari," in which they take a back-to-basics approach. "Our moniker is real decorating for real people," Hiller added.

Making its HGTV debut in 1998, "Designing for the Sexes" presented viewers with a unique concept: a couple in the midst of a home-decor disagreement are assisted by designer Michael Payne. Acting as a mediator of sorts, Payne would meet with the couple and, based on their respective needs, design a new space intended to make both of them happy. As Payne told the Seattle Post-Intelligence in 2003, he was happy to play a part in HGTV bringing the world of home design into the mainstream. "Before then, the world of interior designers and decorators was for the wealthy. It was all about money and status," he said. "Now the public appreciates the values and skills of designers."

After leaving the show, Payne continued running his Los Angeles-based design business. He also wrote a book, "Let's Ask Michael: 100 Practical Solutions for Interior Design Challenges," and remains a popular speaker on the design industry circuit. In addition, he taught a design seminar at the University of Southern California and entered into licensing agreements with various companies, resulting in his own Michael Payne Home Collection, comprising an array of home furnishings and accessories.

More recently, Payne has been maintaining an active presence on social media. Judging by his Instagram account, Payne and his wife enjoy travelling the world, with recent destinations including Bali, Indonesia, England, and Maine.

Originating from HGTV Canada, "She's Crafty" made its way to the U.S., embraced by viewers on both sides of the border. Hosted by Wendy Russell, the series ran from 2007 util 2009, with Russell and her pals sharing how-to tips for all manner of DIY crafts.

After that, Russell got into real estate, and shared her skills as a TV host with female entrepreneurs, serving as what she described in her YouTube bio as an "On-Camera Confidence Coach." Russell writes, "As a Real Estate Investor for over 20 years, I know the importance of getting on-camera to attract your perfect investing partners and clients. Showing up on camera also has us showing up for our lives." She offers a four-week marketing course, via Zoom, that helps her clients put together a series of sales-friendly narratives. "By week four, you'll have a story collection that does your selling for you, turning networking and social media from a necessary evil into your most effective business development tool," she wrote on her website.

Russell is also a public speaker, is in the process of launching a podcast, and has made regular appearances on Canadian daytime talk show "Cityline" as a guest expert. She's also done some acting in several Canadian-made TV series. In 2025, she appeared as a guest on the "Inspired to Invest" podcast, where she confirmed that real estate investing remained her bread and butter. As she revealed on that podcast, during the pandemic, she'd purchased a 14-unit apartment building that had increased in value so much that she had no choice but to sell it at a massive profit.

In "Design on a Dime," Kristan Cunningham and her team undertook big renovations on a small budget, transforming a room in someone's home while spending less than $1,000. After that show's cancellation, she returned with another HGTV series with a similar premise, "Bang for Your Buck."

In 2012, she launched another show, the DIY competition series "Super Saver Showdown," which aired on Oprah Winfrey's OWN network. While she continued to appear on TV — including such shows as "Rachael Ray" and "Home Made Simple" — Cunningham's focus in recent years has been her Los Angeles store, Hammer and Spear. Co-owned by Cunningham and her husband, Scott Jarrell, the store sells an array of furnishings and lighting, and also serves as the home of Cunningham's design studio. As the couple told 1st Dibs, the store's moniker has a very specific meaning. "I called her "the Hammer" because she was a DIY expert and a total ballbuster on set," Jarrell said, while Cunningham added, "The "spear" came from Scott's family crest, whose tagline is "brave with spear."" 

Hammer and Spear allowed Cunningham to establish her own personality as a designer, something she hadn't been able to do via HGTV. "I started so young in TV that I didn't have an opportunity to publicly establish my own style," she explained. "The store was a way to get back to the fundamentals and enjoy design," Jarrell added in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. 

From 1999 until 2007, Suzanne Whang took viewers on tours of spectacular homes as host of HGTV hit "House Hunters." Unlike many of HGTV's on-air personalities, Whang's background wasn't in home decor, but in acting and comedy. In fact, during her years on "House Hunters," she also sneaked in quite a bit of acting work, landing guest spots in such TV series as "NYPD Blue," "The Practice," "Nip/Tuck," and "Without a Trace, to name just a few. She also had recurring roles in "Las Vegas," and long-running soap opera "General Hospital."

In 2006, the year before she exited "House Hunters," Whang was diagnosed with breast cancer. By 2011, the cancer had progressed to stage four, with doctors telling her she was unlikely to live more than six months. Treatment, however, proved successful, and Whang was able to keep the disease at bay for several more years. As she told HuffPost, living with cancer had taught her some fundamental lessons. "I had to learn how to slow down, stay still, ask for help and love, and receive it," she said. "It was unbearable at first. I felt embarrassed and like a failure for having cancer. I didn't want to burden my friends. But they were ecstatic to help me."

Whang passed away in 2019. "For 13 years she confronted cancer with courage, humor, determination, and optimism," her partner, Jeff Vezain, wrote when he shared the sad news via Facebook.

"Designed to Sell" followed real homeowners during the stressful period just before placing their property on the market. For the first few years, Clive Pearse — who had previously hosted "Design Star" — served as host, until parting ways with the show in 2010. As an HGTV spokesperson told Reality Blurred in 2010, future episodes would have "no designated host," explaining that the show's judges would be "taking on the hosting role, where they're assigning the challenges to the finalists, checking out the finalists' work in-person."

However, that all worked out well for Pearse, whose specialty was actually acting, not real estate. He went on to a successful career as a voiceover artist, whose distinctive pipes have appeared in TV and radio commercials for such products as Jaguar, Land Rover, and Ziploc. 

In 2022, Pearse reunited with "Designed to Sell" designer Lisa LaPorta for a new design show, "House Arrest." As of November 2025, there are seven episodes available to view on their YouTube channel, featuring such celebrities as director Paul Feig, "Abbott Elementary" cast member William Stanford Davis, and "Exorcist" star Linda Blair.

In the early days of HGTV, no show was more ubiquitous on the upcoming network than "The Carol Duvall Show," which launched in 1994, producing more than 1,000 episodes before its conclusion in 2005. "I'm not a crafter who got on television," she told the Knight Ridder News Service in 1999 (via The New York Times), recalling getting her start as a local television host during the early days of the medium, when she began demonstrating crafts to fill up airtime. "I'm a television person who got into crafting."

She retired after the show ended, but not entirely. She followed up her HGTV series with the publication of her 2007 book, "Paper Crafting With Carol Duvall." She also appeared in a DVD, "Art Unscripted Retreat with Carol Duvall," in which she led a crafting retreat attended by several artists. She was 97 years old when she passed away in 2023, memorialized in a touching tribute airing on NBC's "Today" show.

Debuting in 1998, "If Walls Could Talk" offered HGTV viewers a different type of home show, offering a healthy dollop of history to spotlight significant American homes and telling the stories behind them. At one point during the series' run, actor Grant Goodeve was tapped to host; during that period, he also hosted another series for HGTV, "Homes of Our Heritage." No stranger to TV viewers, Goodeve is and was best known for being part of the cast of 1980's TV drama "Eight Is Enough," in addition to acting roles in "Dynasty," "Murder, She Wrote," "Northern Exposure," and many other TV series.

These days, Goodeve and his family live in the Pacific Northwest, where he has appeared on local television as a contributor to "Evening Magazine" and hosted his own series, "Northwest Backroads." Goodeve has also been a voice actor on a variety of video games and appeared in the 2021 holiday movie "Christmas in the Pines."