VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Robert Hartwell On His Reality Series ‘Breaking New Ground’ About Renovating His 200-Year-Old Dream Home

Broadway star and entrepreneur Robert Hartwell spoke about his journey filming the new Max reality series Breaking New Ground, which follows the renovation of his 200-year-old dream home, in his new uInterview. 

“I had no idea when I purchased the home four years ago that it would take, one: that long to renovate, and two: that much money actually to make the renovation happen as well,” he told uInterview founder Erik Meers.

Hartwell described the unforeseen complications he had overcome in the process. “I think some of the unexpected challenges are timeline and budget and realizing that you’re doing a historical renovation on a TV timeline,” he explained. “You are, one, having to make sure that all of your choices are aligned with the historical society, and two, that you’re keeping time so that you stay on this TV timeline of getting this project actually complete. So I think one of the biggest surprises was just the heartbreak of the moment where there were architectural elements that I believed were original, and then as we are opening up the walls, we are realizing, ‘Oh, this isn’t original, this is from the 1960s.'”

Hartwell reflected on the history of the old house that included servants’ quarters. “I think every black person in this country has a very complicated history and relationship with this country,” he said. “And you have a deep desire to know where you come from because I think there is so much power in a person knowing, ‘Where do I come from, what is that land, where is that place.’ So being able to answer those questions for myself on this journey was one of my biggest intentions and goals for saying yes to turning this into a TV show with Max.”

The show was spawned by a viral Facebook post that he wrote about his dream house during the pandemic.

“It was not my intention; I didn’t wake up that morning and say, ‘Today I want to go viral,’ and in actuality, I put the post on Facebook because I thought on Facebook it would be more private because that’s where my friends and family are,” he said. “I believe it struck a nerve because it was June 2020, and we had just experienced the murder of George Floyd, were in the middle of the Black Lives Matter protest, and here I was buying this home, and it just showed people hope, and it showed people really what was possible when we live and we live our authentic selves and I just told my truth in that post and I think that it just gave people a lot of joy and that became contagious for people to spread.”

Breaking New Ground is now available to stream on Max.