Now living in second-floor showcases above first-floor showroom-style space, they're part of a show themselves: "reZONED," an HGTV program that features commercial spaces converted to homes.

Vicky Hekkers never imagined her dream home would be an old Studebaker dealership. But that's where she lives now, with husband Tom and several whole and a few partial classic cars.

Similarly, when Bea Popple's husband told her he had found a dream home for the couple and their car collection, she was a little confused. She had assumed their traditional suburban colonial, the one they had been living in for 20 years, was it. According to her husband, it wasn't.

Charles Popple spotted a dilapidated blacksmith shop while jogging through downtown Waukesha, and decided they would buy it, renovate it and live there.

Bea Popple said he was crazy.

"We bought four walls," she said, remembering her shock at the condition of the place. "It was a dilapidated shell. Birds lived here," she added.

The two couples renovated more than their own properties. Their efforts were a catalyst for the neighborhood.

Downtown Waukesha has a riverwalk along the Fox River, gift shops, coffee shops, boutiques and art galleries.

"This isn't the Waukesha that it was 10 years ago, when you could walk a block and not have a business that was open," said Vicky Hekkers.

The two couples were chosen for the HGTV program because of the different look of their new settings.

"Most of the properties for the show are unusual. They might be a church, former fire hall, barns . . . they look for interesting properties, not just square brick buildings. They're interested in the stories behind the homes," said HGTV spokeswoman Emily Yarborough.

Said Kate Dore, associate producer of "reZONED": "We are looking for homes that were a public building that have been turned into a private residence. If they have a lot reminders of the past, we're very interested to see how they were adapted and how they fit the space around the structure and if there are any original details there . . . . We're looking for people who have the creativity and vision to take on the challenge."

Both programs will air throughout January, although the one about the Tom and Vicky Hekkers debuted Christmas Eve. Neither family could see the show before it aired, and the Popples have yet to see their own.

"They film eight hours then shrink it to six minutes, and it's just so crazy. You have no idea what they're going to show," said Bea Popple.

Tom and Vicky Hekkers looked for years for a space large enough to house Tom's 10 cars before finding the former Henry Israel Motors Studebaker dealership. It took them two years to renovate the 1946 building, but now they've got space to play with: nearly 10,000 square feet of auto showroom, work room and second-story residential loft. It wasn't easy. They had their vision: lots of windows, pocket doors and partial walls, but their architects had another. "They kept saying, 'Oh, you don't want that,' " says Vicky Hekkers, "and I said 'I don't? Oh really? How silly of me to think that's what I want!' " Three architects later, they ended up designing the space themselves. Now, atop the Art Deco curved-window façade of the Studebaker showroom is a clean-lined living space that Tom Hekkers describes as "a blend of Mission, Prairie, Contemporary and Oriental."