Chicago street smarts gained Southern style in the fourth season of Battle on the Beach as Windy City Rehab’s Alison Victoria joined forces with Norfolk, Virginia, renovators Teresa Robinson and Brandon Parker. They had a meet-not-cute, as it were, “when I bought an ugly house,” as Teresa explained. “He helped me out, and we’ve been partnering on projects ever since. I’m more of a designer-planner and Brandon’s the builder.” They were both ready to follow Alison’s lead to victory (and the $50,000 grand prize) and determined to honor their own instincts as they renovated their home. “This is the South and I’m from the South, so I think I’m the expert [on this market],” Teresa explained.

Alison had a Season 2 win under her tool belt, but her fellow mentors brought their own victories to the shore: Build It Forward’s Taniya Nayak took the first Battle of the Beach crown, and Rock the Block host Ty Pennington returned to the beach fresh from his Season 3 win. Taniya mentored new-to-flipping Michigan renovators Sam and Sean Kilgore, while Ty hoped to lead married Dallas flippers Chyenne Overturf-Smith and Kristin Smith to the winners’ circle.

The champions and their contestants faced off on Oak Island, North Carolina, a picturesque barrier island about 35 miles south of Wilmington, and began competition with unprecedented budgets of $100,000 per team. Each of the three homes to be renovated had four bedrooms and two baths — plus their own combinations of hidden gems and nasty surprises.

To evoke the “sight-unseen” circumstances in which some homes are now purchased, the three teams were given a whopping two minutes to review exterior photos and floor plans of the three properties they’d choose from — no interior sneak peeks allowed. Team Alison scored their second choice and the competition’s only two-story home. At 1,480 square feet and a starting value of $851,900, it was a big-ticket project with an opportunity to take big swings. On their first at-bat, Teresa and Brandon took their mentor’s advice and decided to flip their floor plan to situate the kitchen where the living room had been. It was a major risk, but they trusted her resume and results. “I have never changed a house to this scale,” Teresa explained. “I have much less experience, but I’ve seen the work that she’s done and it’s beautiful.”

Thanks to the combined effort of Alison’s phone-wrangling and Brandon and Teresa’s sweat equity for installation, the home’s spectacular pitched ceiling now boasts beams and a faux stone treatment that rises to meet it all the way from the floor. Teresa created a custom bench to add warmth to the interior wall beside the staircase, and she steered the space’s character just a bit away from her mentor’s recommended course. “We decided to go coastal boho with the design for the house,” she said. “I’m from South Carolina, so I understand the Carolinas a bit, [and] coastal boho felt more like the Carolinas versus [the] Malibu [vibe] Alison absolutely loves.”