Renovation
Full-spoiler recap — Season 1, Episode 6, “The Final Fright”: two designers, one haunted manor, and a champion crowned at Bihl Manor.
Spoilers ahead for A Very Haunted Renovation Season 1, Episode 6, “The Final Fright,” the season finale that aired Tuesday, October 20 on HGTV. For six weeks, six designers lived inside Bihl Manor — a Victorian mansion in Fremont, Ohio, built in the 1890s by jewelry and piano merchant Jerome Bihl, later used for funeral viewings and as a group home, and billed by HGTV as one of the most haunted homes in America. The finale came down to two of them.
The final two
Per HGTV’s finale synopsis, finalists SK Stokes Kennedy and Logan Wright stood with only the dining room and kitchen restorations between them and the $50,000 prize — and, in the network’s words, tempers flared and even the house seemed to protest as the designers faced their toughest battle yet.
After 31 days of grueling restoration work inside the manor, both finalists reflected on what the house had given them. “This house has taught me patience and how to forge new paths of creativity,” Logan said. SK hoped it would all be worth the time spent away from her family — she has said she took on the competition to show her family and her sons the importance of going after your dreams.
The verdict
Per HGTV’s own finale coverage, the last judging came down to the kitchen. Logan’s inventive island earned high marks for both creativity and function, although judge Hannah Beachler felt the lighting could have made a stronger, more gothic statement. Then came the moment of truth: judges Anna Camp, Michel Smith Boyd and Hannah named SK Stokes Kennedy the Season 1 champion and awarded her the $50,000 prize. “I feel amazing. Validated,” SK said — celebrating the win, in HGTV’s telling, as a victory not only for her design skills but for showing up as her authentic self.
The house always gets a scene
The finale’s competition was the headline, but the season’s texture came from Bihl Manor itself — and the show’s own producers have the receipts. In an HGTV.com interview, producer Sarah Douglass described filming a scene with a REM-Pod (a device used to detect unseen energy or movement) in the room directly above the control room: the pod started going off, the control room lights began flashing — slowly at first, then faster — and the rattled crew shut the scene down entirely. “Whatever was happening, it did not feel like happy energy,” she said. She also described arriving early on mornings and twice hearing someone call her name when nobody was there.
It is fitting color for a season that mixed real design stakes — host Anna Camp, mentor Michel Smith Boyd, and a guest-judge lineup that included Eli Roth, Billy Porter, Jack Osbourne, Cassandra Peterson, Hannah Beachler and Lulu Wilson — with a house that kept insisting on being a cast member.
The 247 Take — HGTV has launched a lot of competitions, but A Very Haunted Renovation understood its assignment in a way most don’t: the design had to honor the house’s history, and the house’s history is a haunting. SK won the way you win in a place like Bihl Manor — by treating its ghosts as clients rather than obstacles. Six designers moved in. The manor kept the final word, and SK kept the check.
A Very Haunted Renovation aired Tuesdays at 8/7c on HGTV and streams on HBO Max.
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Sources: HGTV, “HGTV’s A ‘Very Haunted Renovation’: Who Won Season 1?” (https://www.hgtv.com/shows/a-very-haunted-renovation/articles/a-very-haunted-renovation-comes-to-hgtv) | HGTV, “Step Inside the HGTV Renovation of Bihl Manor” (https://www.hgtv.com/shows/a-very-haunted-renovation/a-very-haunted-renovation-manor-makeover-pictures) | HGTV, “‘A Very Haunted Renovation’ Producers Reveal Scary Happenings on Set” (https://www.hgtv.com/shows/a-very-haunted-renovation/articles/on-set-of-hgtvs-a-very-haunted-renovation) | EntertainmentNow, HGTV schedule for October 19–25, 2026 (https://entertainmentnow.com/hgtv/schedule-today-weekly-shows-primetime-october-19-25-2026/)
