In this exclusive interview, the Doziers share their unique creative process and their unexpected journey to TV stardom.
Ben Dozier:We started as a landscape company in Austin, Texas when our first child was born.
Cristi Dozier:And your first client was your grandma.
It’s a gift I really didn’t know I had.
That’s how we got started.
How did you collaborate and work as a couple?
Who does what in your projects?
[It’s] a lot of fun.
Sometimes it works on the design, but not always.
Neither one of us [has] a formal education in design.
It’s all been make it up.
Ben:Make it up as we go.
The Doziers had no ambitions for a TV career
How did “Building Roots” come about?
How did you manage to get the show?
We like to take new risks and do new adventures and not too many of our projects are alike.
She’s really connected with our story and with our family, and I appreciated that.
We were real apprehensive.
TV makes people feel weird and fuzzy.
It wasn’t something we pursued whatsoever.
We really did like Bridget, who reached out to us.
We loved the conversations we had with her.
We kept taking the next step in the whole process.
Honestly, we kept enjoying the people we were working with along the way.
It went from Instagram message to email to sizzle reel to pilot and then series.
We kept thinking, “Oh, this is going to go away.
This will be a fun story,” and it hasn’t gone away.
Here are some of hallmarks of the Doziers' signature style
Wow, that’s exciting.
I’ve noticed that your designs seem to be very much inspired by the Colorado landscape.
Are there any particular features or details that you consider characteristic of the area?
Ben:A lot of natural woods.
Cristi:Raw steel.
We don’t do a lot of real loud colors.
They’re all very cool, warm-toned colors, very subdued, natural, real inviting, warm.
That’s what we shoot for.
We maintain some clientele in Austin.
Through telling some of those stories on Instagram, it struck a chord.
That’s a little more of our background in that we’re not from this area.
It’s pretty new to us, but we’ve been familiar with it for years.
Ben:I appreciate it, and you see that now in our designs.
Ben:Ee don’t.
We don’t do much marketing or advertise or anything like that.
It’s all relationships.
We’re thankful for that.
We have some of the best clients.
many of these projects have a story.
Even before the TV show, we found ourselves only doing projects that have a story.
I was not interested.
You meet them with coffee and then what happens?
Some are family camps, some are maybe a retirement home for a smaller couple.
We talk about those high-level needs and desires and goals and dreams.
How [did] this house come to be yours?
What was the influence that it had?
I love working with existing structures.
I don’t do a lot or hardly ever any new builds.
I do remodels or restoration.
[It involves] going on a long trail run, it’s skiing, it’s fly fishing.
It’s backpacking, it’s whatever.
After I’ve gained all that information, there’ll be some inspiration and experience that will eventually happen.
That will give me an idea.
Creativity’s not a light switch that you turn on and off.
It hits you randomly.
When it hits, you run with it.
I’m like, “Nope, don’t have anything yet.
Wait until it hits, inspires.”
That’s where it comes from.
Cristi:Ben always likes to say he has nature deficit disorder, meaning sometimes he needs more nature.
Is it different working with clients on the show than working clients off the show?
Ben:It is different, yes.
We started this little hashtag amongst our group, and our daughter actually came up with it #rootforeachother.
Cristi:And vice versa, we were rooting for them.
Ben:It definitely is a different conversation [with] a non-TV client versus a TV client.
It became a lot of fun.
That was the point of “Building Roots.”
That’s what we really enjoyed.
A different conversation with the client, but it was fun, they were fun conversations.
It was definitely a different relationship.
Can you just walk in from over there?"
Sometimes I would be like, “Oh gosh, are they going to be okay doing this?”
They would be so on board with it.
They just as much wanted to tell a good story as we did.
In the process, it has become more about the story of the project than the actual project itself.
Ben:This is less about what we built and more about who we built up.
Ben:The people, that’s what it’s all about.
The conversation, the relationship, the story so many of these families had such neat stories.
Cristi:Right, but it’s not just the clients.
It was also the construction crew.
We have a really awesome group of people bringing the projects to life.
No matter how uncomfortable it was, it was so cool bringing all these people together.
Ben Dozier:There’s some cool projects.
That was the most joy.
That was a lot of fun more about people, less about the project.
“Building Roots” airs Sundays at 9/8c.
Tune in to HGTV or stream episodes the same day onHGTV GO.
