Good contractors don't mind tough jobs because they often mean big money. But when it came to this particular project, one of the toughest challenges involved the homeowners themselves: residents of the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, whose home had suffered immense damage during Hurricane Katrina. They not only had an unlivable house, but no money with which to fix it.

"The [previous] contractor took all they had and then liened their property," Holmes said. "The first thing I had to do was put them up for a year. I paid for where they lived. I paid their electrical bills. I paid their telephone bill. I paid their legal bills." And he didn't skimp on costs when it came to rebuilding their home, either. "We designed the world's strongest home because if I was going to build a home, I was going to make a testament to it. And that was a home that will withstand a hurricane, a tornado, and the test of time. I always talked about the Three Little Pigs, and that's probably the reason it was so hard because it just had every single element of pain. It was financially huge."