About Steve
After 14 years hosting This Old House, Steve went on to highlight historical restorations on the History Channel’s Save Our History and green renovation across America on Renovation Nation on Discovery's Planet Green.
Steve has renovated his own homes for more than 40 years, starting with a run-down 1920's craftsman cottage in Olympia, Washington, then a number of historic homes in Salem, MA, and two houses and a barn on an island off the coast of Maine. He recently did a renovation/restoration of Sea Cove Cottage, a 1905 Victorian in a classic Maine lobstering village. Steve builds and renovates homes for clients in the mid-coast Maine area with Steve Thomas Builders.
Steve is a popular speaker, video producer, and writer. He is also committed to public service, serving on the Board of Trustees of the LifeFlight of Maine Foundation. For five years he worked with Habitat for Humanity International on the ReStore and Home Builders Blitz initiatives.
The other path in Steve’s life has been adventure, which he attributes to his late grandfather, an Episcopal missionary in the remote Alaskan Arctic village of Point Hope. After college Steve crewed on a sailboat racing out to Hawaii, brought the boat back to Seattle, then spent a year in the Mediterranean as first mate of a 103’ schooner and as a boatbuilder in Antibes, France. Then, he sailed a 40’ sloop from England to San Francisco via the Panama Canal, Galapagos, Marquesas and Hawaii.
In the early 1980's, he journeyed to the remote Micronesian island of Satawal to learn the ancient skill of star path navigation under the late master navigator, Mau Piailug. Steve's research resulted in the critically acclaimed book, The Last Navigator, and a one-hour documentary for the PBS’s Adventure. It was in 1989, in between research trips to the Alaskan Arctic for a second Adventure book and film, that Steve got a call from the series publicist, who also worked for This Old House, whose producers were conducting a nationwide search for a new host ….. and the rest is history.
I hosted PBS’s This Old House for fourteen years, from 1989 through 2003, during which the show rose to the top of PBS's list of most-watched ongoing series. I was honored with a 1997-1998 Daytime Emmy Award, and received a total of nine nominations for Outstanding Service Show Host and the show received 16 Emmys. In 2022, I received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy for my work on the show.
In 2007 Discovery Communications launched Planet Green, a network dedicated to programs about sustainability. I was brought on as producer and host for Renovation Nation, a one-hour show about green building and renovation. Over the next two years we shot 66 episodes.
From 2004 through 2007, I was host and producer for 13 1-hour episodes for Save Our History. Here are excerpts from two of the best:
I made my television debut on PBS’s Adventure Series with the documentary film The Last Navigator based on my book by the same title. Abbeville Press will be publishing a revised edition with lots of pictures in Spring of 2025.
Habitat for Humanity International
I worked for Habitat for Humanity for five years in Africa and the US producing brand videos, PSA’s and commercials for a variety of Habitat initiatives. Here’s a selection. Check ‘em out.
Domestic Global Village
Steve is Crazy (in Kenya)
Kibera
In 2017, filmmaker David Berez and wildlife biologist Tom Goettel and I set out to shoot a full length documentary on the wild islands of Maine’s National Wildlife Refuge. We shot a pilot, put together a prospectus, before the project got stalled. We’re proud of this pilot and maybe someday we’ll get to do the film.
Wild Islands