As if there were not already enough house-flipping dramas out there, rapper Vanilla Ice is joining the fray with his DIY network program The Vanilla Ice Project, a show intended to show him flipping foreclosed houses and demonstrating his “handyman prowess”[1]. Vanilla Ice (Robert Van Winkle) has been involved in real estate since the late 1990s, when he started renovating homes during the housing boom and “swinging a hammer…being one of the guys.”
The show will follow Van Winkle and his crew as they renovate a gutted, 7,000 square-foot property that he bought at a tax sale. According to the rapper, “It worked out good for me because it shows really nasty on the show and then we fix it up amazing.”
For the benefit of the cameras – and possibly at the whim of the star – the home will be outfitted not just with new sinks, toilets, cabinets and floors, but also an infinity pool with color changing, spinning fire planters and mood lighting, so that lighting turns to shades of red for a bad mood and shades of blue for a good mood.
Vanilla Ice is not the first celebrity to take advantage of their star power to make a move in the real estate market. Sharona Alperin, inspiration for the song “My Sharona” has been working in the Los Angeles area for more than 20 years and still blasts the song off her website’s home page; Stuart Damon (Dr. Alan Quartermain from “General Hospital”) teamed up with Caldwell after leaving the show to establish The Damon Group, and the entire crew of Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing” reports a slew of clients, speaking gigs and even book publications as a result of the show[2].
[1]http://culturemap.com/newsdetail/09-18-10-ice-ice-closing-costs-texan-vanilla-ice-transforms-into-a-house-flipping-real-estate-mogul/
[2] http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2010/10/01/1646669/la-real-estate-scene-attracts.html
