In his one-and-a-half-hour Archive interview, television host and "grandfather of home improvement" Bob Vila discusses growing up in Miami and Havana, studying architecture in college and graduate school, and serving in the Peace Corps before starting his own business renovating brownstones and converting them into condominiums. He describes his unintentional foray into television as the featured guest on the local Boston show House Calls -- a program that soon morphed into This Old House and aired nationally on PBS with Vila as host. He explains how the program was a natural pairing of his passion for restoration and construction and his easy-going demeanor. Vila details his departure from This Old House, the creation of his own program, Bob Vila's Home Again, and shares his thoughts on Home Improvemen t - a television sitcom that may have been based on Mr. Vila himself. Karen Herman conducted the interview in New York City on June 10, 2010.
