‘Vanilla Ice Project’ starts second season

MIAMI – An unlikely home improvement show hosted by 1990s rapper Vanilla Ice is set to premiere its second season with the remodeling of another South Florida home.

During the 13-episode run of “The Vanilla Ice Project” on the DIY Network, the artist, whose real name is Rob Van Winkle, and his crew will take a dilapidated Palm Beach County mansion along the Intercostal Waterway and bring it into the 21st century.

Van Winkle’s passion for real estate and renovation took hold in the early 1990s. He first bought a home on Miami Beach’s exclusive Star Island. He subsequently bought homes in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles, New York’s Greenwich Village and Snowbird, Utah.

“I went on tour for three years and never saw any of those houses,” Van Winkle said.

He decided to sell them – and a new career was born.

“I literally made millions of dollars on them,” Van Winkle said. “I was like, you gotta be kidding me. It can’t be that easy. Let’s go buy some more.”

“The Vanilla Ice Project” came together after a producer remembered Van Winkle talking about his real estate experience during an interview for another show.

Matt Levine, with Departure Films, was looking to duplicate the success of “Flip This House,” a hit on the A&E Network, and remembered Van Winkle talking about his real estate experience. When Levine called, he learned that Van Winkle was in the process of buying a large, completely gutted foreclosure in Palm Beach.

Levine acknowledged that the oddness of the show’s premise – Vanilla Ice doing home improvement – was probably the original draw for most viewers.

“I think it was unexpected, his likeability and how much he knew,” Levine said.