Status: DESTROYED BY SECOND FIRE
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition aftermath stories have gotten complicated with all the foreclosures and financial problems flying around. As someone who’s tracked what happened to every single family the show ever featured, I learned everything there is to know about the Peter family — and I have to tell you, their story might be the most devastating in the entire history of the show. Today, I will share it all with you.
The First Fire
In December 2004, the Peter family’s tri-level colonial home burned. That’s bad enough on its own, but what followed was worse. The family couldn’t afford to repair the damage, so they did the only thing they could — they moved back into the burned house. Let me be clear about what that means. They were living in a fire-damaged home with no heat. No hot water. They cooked on a makeshift propane stove, which, if you think about it, is terrifyingly ironic for a family whose house just burned down. They boiled water to bathe. They covered broken windows with plastic sheeting.
This wasn’t camping or roughing it for a weekend. This was daily life for the Peter family in Jamaica, Queens, one of the biggest cities in the world. Right there in New York City, a family was living like it was the 1800s because they couldn’t afford to fix what the fire had taken.
Winston Peter’s Plea
Probably should have led with this section, honestly, because it explains how the show got involved.
Winston Peter is a priest. Not a high-earning profession by any stretch. He served his community faithfully, but the salary that comes with that calling wasn’t anywhere close to what it would cost to repair a tri-level colonial home. So he reached out to Extreme Makeover, and the show responded. Alure Home Improvements came in and rebuilt the family’s 155th Street home in Jamaica, Queens into a beautiful family residence.
For once, the story seemed like it was going to have a happy ending. Family loses home to fire. Family suffers through years of terrible living conditions. TV show shows up, fixes everything. Roll credits. That’s how it was supposed to go.
The Second Fire
That’s what makes the Peter family’s story endearing to us who care about these families — except “endearing” isn’t quite the right word. “Heartbreaking” is closer. “Unbelievable” works too.
In 2011, the rebuilt Extreme Makeover home caught fire and was destroyed. Again. A two-alarm blaze started around 2 p.m. on a Sunday at their 155th Street address. Twenty-five FDNY units responded to the scene. Twenty-five. That gives you a sense of how serious the fire was — this wasn’t a kitchen grease fire that got out of hand. This was a full-scale structure fire that required a massive emergency response.
Everything the show had built for them — the new construction, the custom finishes, all of it — gone for the second time. The family was right back where they started, except this time they’d already used their one shot at a TV rescue.
“Everything Is Just Gone”
Romesh Peter, a family member, said it about as plainly as anyone could: “Going from the top to the bottom — everything is just gone. The whole family is stunned and shocked.”
I keep coming back to those words because they capture something that statistics and property records can’t. “From the top to the bottom.” This family went from a burned house to a beautiful home and then back to nothing. Twice. The emotional toll of losing everything, rebuilding hope through a nationally televised miracle, and then losing everything again — I honestly don’t know how a family processes that. Most of us will never experience one house fire in our lifetimes. The Peters went through two.
There’s an old saying about lightning not striking twice in the same place. Apparently nobody told the universe about the Peter family, because this is exactly what happened — the same devastating loss, at the same address, to the same people who had already proven they could survive it once. Being asked to survive it twice feels like a test nobody should have to take.
The Bigger Question
Whenever I bring up the Peter family in conversations about the show, people always ask the same thing: was there insurance on the rebuilt home? After what happened with the Dore family’s lapsed insurance policy and the first fire that started this whole saga, you’d hope someone made sure the Peters were fully covered for the new build. But the public records don’t give me a clear answer on that, and I haven’t been able to confirm what financial resources, if any, the family had to work with after the second fire.
The Peter family’s story is the one I point to when people say Extreme Makeover: Home Edition always ended in financial trouble. Sometimes the problem wasn’t money at all. Sometimes it was just terrible, incomprehensible bad luck visited on people who’d already had more than their share.
Last verified: January 2026
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