‘Home Town’ Hotel Owners Share Next Steps After Devastating Fire

Home Town: Inn This Together may have ended on a sad note, but the future of the Heirloom Hotel is bright.

Erin and Ben Napier‘s latest Home Town spinoff concluded its four-episode run on May 31. The series followed the HGTV couple as they worked with their friends — Jim and Mallorie Rasberry and Josh Nowell — to transform a historic building in Laurel, Mississippi, into the Heirloom Hotel.

The finale episode featured both the completed hotel and the aftermath of the devastating August 2025 fire that caused severe damage and delayed the hotel’s opening. Though the group has since announced plans to rebuild, they shared more details about their next steps on the Sunday, June 7, episode of The Heirloom Podcast.

“We have been working for 20 years to make our town shine like we know it can shine. That’s what we’ve all been doing together. I know this, that for the next 20 years, Lord willing, we will continue that work. And so, as far as what’s next for us, I am hopeful for the next season of life,” Nowell told listeners. “As far as what’s next, I know that I don’t know what’s going to come next. I didn’t know we’d be where we are now, but I’m grateful that I’m here with you guys. I’m grateful that I get to do this with y’all. And we’re gonna do it again.”

Mallorie noted, “We’re a lot better off than we were 10 months ago,” while Erin added, “God has a plan that none of us know about, and that is the story of our whole life. Ben’s supposed to be a logger. I’m supposed to be living in Birmingham, designing magazines.”

Jim stated that he spent the first few months after the hotel fire unsure and unmotivated about the future, but that is no longer the case. “While we don’t know exactly what’s next, that doesn’t mean that we’re not thinking about it. And so, what this has given us, I think, is an opportunity to kind of dream about what’s next and be thinking about what’s next,” he stated. “It’s not like something that’s not out there. We have a vision. We have goals for our community, for ourselves, for our state, and we continue to want to make it better. So, I think some really cool things are down the pike.”

Josh went on to tease that the group has been “doing some planning” and has “ideas” in the works. “Many of you have found us because of HGTV. Thank you, thank you, HGTV. Will we do it again on HGTV? We don’t know,” he added, “We’re gonna see what it is, and then we’ll work to see what that might look like. But we’re very grateful for the network for telling our story, the story of our town to so many people. And yeah, stay tuned.”

Ben also took the opportunity to thank HGTV for their support after the fire. “HGTV is owned by an even bigger company, which is then owned by an even bigger company — a lot of them would have just said, like, ‘I don’t care, we’re airing it. We’re airing it as is. It’s good TV.’ Or, ‘We’re not airing it at all,’ because their product is the show. Their product is not the hotel. It’s not Laurel. It’s nothing like that,” he stated. “And so, for them to have held it and then re-edited it to get it to where it is, and RTR for that matter, that was very gracious in a world that is not always gracious.”

Since the finale, Erin and Ben have both shared on social media that their friends are still waiting for an insurance claim to be approved to help finance the hotel’s reconstruction. The hotel also announced that fans can support the construction by purchasing photo rails made out of the building’s salvaged flooring.