Is this Somerset home the 'Ugliest House in America'? HGTV show visits the SouthCoast

• A home in Somerset was featured on HGTV's "Ugliest House in America."
• The house was built in 1962, and is partly trapezoidal and partly clad in stone.
• The show pits "gaudy" houses against each other, with the "winner" getting $150,000 in renovations.

SOMERSET — Does Somerset have the ugliest house in America?

That’s the word on the street — or at least on the HGTV show “Ugliest House in America.”

The show finds some of the tackiest, gaudiest, most bizarre homes around, with the "ugliest" one each episode winning $150,000 in renovations. Host Retta (of “Parks and Recreation” fame) landed in Somerset for a recent episode, where she ended up on Lourdes Road to spotlight a house she said “looks like a building on a school campus or a bank.”

But beauty is in the eye of the mortgage-holder. Owner Guerline Norbrun, who paid $692,500 for the house in 2023, says she loves it.

“I like things that are unique,” she says in the show.

What is the house like?

The house was built in 1962, and its exterior is very much of that era. It almost has a Brutalist vibe, with half the house shaped like a trapezoid made of what appears to be beige concrete, and the other half clad in stone paneling. Flanking the doors are mirrored panels.

The show spends significant time on the interior, which still has a great deal of 1960s-70s era flair: a dining room walled off by breeze blocks and vertical strips of mirror, a triangle-shaped kitchen, and a conversation room with what used to be a fountain wall.

The house appears to have a flat asphalt roof, which Guerline notes has caused some roof leakage.

Still, Retta and Guerline spar throughout the episode, with Guerline defending much of the décor and Retta calling the upscale style a “haute mess.”

What is the house’s history?

The house was previously owned by the Campos family. Manuel Leite Campos was owner of Sonho do Lar, a Portuguese furniture store, along with Charlmor Furniture and an Ethan Allen franchise.

The fountain wall still has “Campos” written out in tile.

Is it the “ugliest house in America”?

Every episode features three houses, with Retta deciding which house will get the $150,000 renovation.

Guerline’s house was up against a “whimsical nightmare” in New Jersey that Retta called a “crafty cottage of confusion and delusion protected by the devil,” and a former church in Hampden, Massachusetts, with a working pipe organ still built into it.

To find out which house “won,” check out “Ugliest Houses in America,” season 6 episode 4, on HGTV and streaming on Max.