CHIP GAINES
ANYONE WOULD MARVEL AT THE LAST FIVE YEARS OF CHIP AND JOANNA GAINES’ LIVES. Not only have they become one of the most recognized and admired couples in pop culture, they’ve leveraged their popularity into a booming lifestyle brand and helped to revitalize their adopted hometown in the process. They’ve also expanded their own brood; the fifth Gaines child was born in June.
The remarkable TV success and public goodwill aimed at this family is perhaps what made the last year of their journey so surprising.
Halfway through 2018, the Waco, Texas-based couple walked away from one of the most watched shows on cable. The HGTV juggernaut Fixer Upper, which lovingly documented the Gaines’ house renovation and design projects for hometown clients, ended at the height of its popularity after five seasons. Joanna served as the relatable visionary behind clean, resourceful interiors, and Chip was the everyman contractor and goofy demo king, always ready to provide loving levity.
They were the perfect balm for the out-of-control negativity pool that is reality TV. Hardworking but not dry, adorable but not cloying, whimsical but still grounded. And, most important to the concept of reality TV, they were real.
“We’re not really actors, we’re not really TV hosts,” Chip Gaines tells us during a lengthy chat about family and business. “We are who you think we are. We’re the couple you want to go have a coffee with, we’re the couple you want to have a 15-minute chat with on the way to the market.
“The reason that we’re those people is because we do the hard work that is required. We treat each other with respect. We admire one another’s strengths and weaknesses. We pull for each other. We learned that early.”
The 44-year-old New Mexico native turned Texan has been thinking a lot lately about the early life lessons that have carried him into such a fruitful period. Rather than twiddling thumbs or looking for another TV gig, Gaines has kept himself busy — chaotically so, even — tending to his family’s growing array of Magnolia-branded businesses.
There’s the Magnolia Market at the Silos complex in Waco, where more than a million people visit and shop every year. The complex also includes a bakery, Silos Baking Co., and a new homey restaurant, Magnolia Table, is located a few minutes down the road. There are Magnolia-themed events throughout the year, including an inaugural marathon that Chip himself ran. There’s a quarterly lifestyle magazine called that the Gaineses oversee. Don’t forget about the, will be rereleased in February with some added material — in it, he discusses every facet of his family’s growing empire.
