Medfield family gets 'Extreme' gift

MEDFIELD -- Each baseball season, David and Heidi Johnson host neighborhood parties around the big-screen television in the loft of their weathered, yellow barn. The Johnsons, die-hard Red Sox fans, supply peanuts, hot dogs, cotton candy, even homemade sugar cookies shaped like baseballs. The three Johnson children dress in their best Sox gear.

Yet, while his older brother and sister bound up to the loft, 5-year-old William must be carried. Born with spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disease that has caused his muscles to waste away, William cannot stand or walk. His parents take turns carrying the 32-pound boy up and down the barn stairs, the front porch of their turn-of-the-century farmhouse, and the stairway to the second-floor bedroom he shares with his brother.

But the way the Johnsons do things is about to change.

As a line of sport utility vehicles filled with producers and cameramen converged on their neighborhood yesterday, the Johnsons learned that they had been chosen to appear on ''Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," the ABC reality show that demolishes and rebuilds a house in seven days while the family is sent on vacation.

Knowing that the Johnsons were finalists, neighbors had been abuzz since sunrise. Then, at just before 9 a.m., the unmarked maroon bus with tinted windows rolled up and out spilled the designers, including popular host Ty Pennington.

''Good morning, Johnson family!" Pennington yelled through a bullhorn. Neighbors, kept away from the house and off the street by producers, peered from garage-door windows and sprawling lawns across the street.

William and his 7-year-old brother, Matthew, grabbed orange traffic cones and, using them as improvised megaphones, yelled hello back, said Constance Ramos, one of five designers on the show. They also gave all the designers and crew members red rubber Red Sox Nation bracelets.

William's grandmother, watching from a neighbor's garage, called her son in California.

''I can't believe it," said Jane Roberts, crying into her cellphone as she put her hand on her cheek. ''We got it. I just can't believe it. It's the best thing."

''It'll be a whole new world for the next week," Andrew Harrison, the show's location manager, told neighbors, relatives, and friends gathered across the street.

The show could not have picked a more deserving family, friends and neighbors said. Heidi Johnson stopped working as a human resources manager to care for William and raise money to find a cure for his disease. She helps train parents and high school students to teach kindergartners through third-graders about disability awareness. Instead of birthday presents, William and his siblings ask for donations for spinal muscular atrophy research.

The disease has weakened William's respiratory system and dislocated his hips. He is scheduled for surgery in May.

William, who recently started kindergarten, plays on a West Roxbury baseball team for disabled children. He bats a whiffle ball from a tee attached to his motorized wheelstand. His parents have banned his team uniform -- a Yankee hat and shirt -- from the house, relatives said.

The family, who has lived in the house for 13 years, was nominated for the show more than a year ago by Erica Stahler, Heidi Johnson's sister. They had wanted to build an addition to their three-bedroom house with 1 1/2 bathrooms. William needed ramps to get in and out of the house in his wheelchair and motorized wheelstand. His parents wanted his bedroom closer to theirs so they could shift his position in the middle of the night when he cries out in pain. When they did not hear from the show's producers, the community raised more than $30,000 for a handicapped-accessible bathroom, and William's father and grandfather began work on the 1,300-square-foot house themselves.

The Johnsons could not be interviewed yesterday because they were being filmed walking through the house with Pennington, then whisked to the airport for their donated vacation. Family members heard they were on their way to a spa in Arizona, but show producers would not confirm.

Neighbor Jennifer Ouimette said the Johnsons' appearance on the show isn't their first brush with fame. Ouimette said she introduced the family to Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's family last spring during a Little League game. Schilling, who raises money for ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, research, took immediately to William and invited the Johnsons to watch the Red Sox's season opener at his Medfield home, she said.

''It's just wonderful Curt has scooped up little William and is trying to help him," said Ouimette, whose son plays baseball with Schilling's son.

Today, volunteers will start moving the family's furniture and belongings into storage. Their farmhouse will be demolished tomorrow and construction will begin. On Saturday, the Johnsons will have a larger, more accessible home.

Beyond that, the cast and crew of the show were coy about exactly what would await the Johnsons when they return.

''You love baseball that much man, you should be able to play it whenever you want -- in style. We're going to make sure that happens," said Daniel Kucan, a designer on the show.

Designer Ed Sanders hinted that a certain historic ballpark might make an appearance in the family's back garden.

''I've got to make a trip to Fenway Park," he said.