Jonathan Scott & Zooey Deschanel Bought Their 'Dream Home': 'Where We'll See the Kids Grow Up'

The Property Brothers star and the New Girl actress have been dating since August 2019

Jonathan Scott and Zooey Deschanel have purchased a home together! And they're in the middle of a major renovation, naturally.

The Property Brothers host, 43, and former New Girl star, 41, shared the happy news in the latest issue of Jonathan and his twin brother and HGTV costar Drew's magazine, Drew + Jonathan Reveal. (Reveal is owned by PEOPLE's parent company, Dotdash Meredith.)

The couple will share their new Los Angeles home, which they closed on in June 2020 and have been renovating ever since, with Deschanel's two kids — son Charlie Wolf, 4, and daughter, Elsie Otter, 5 — whom she shares with her ex-husband Jacob Pechenik.

"Eight months into our relationship, I already knew Zooey was the yin to my yang, the PB to my J. We were on parallel paths toward the happiness we'd been seeking our whole lives," Jonathan writes in a heartfelt personal essay for issue #9 of Reveal, on newsstands Jan. 7.

Courtesy of HGTV

Zooey and Jonathan met in the summer of 2019 while filming an episode of Carpool Karaoke with their famous siblings (actress Emily Deschanel and real estate agent Drew) and made their relationship official in August of that year.

Purchasing and renovating a home together is a big step for the couple, and involved a major life change for Jonathan, who has long called a family compound in Las Vegas home when not traveling the country for his HGTV shows.

Dennys Ilic

"What I found out very early on is that Zooey loves Los Angeles. Like, love-loves it. She's a native Angeleno, her parents still live in her childhood home, the whole deal," he writes. "I recall thinking, Okay, okay...give me the sales pitch, skeptically, not thinking of myself as an 'L.A. guy.' But the more she showed me her Los Angeles — the parks she went to growing up, the neighborhoods where she made memories with her closest friends — the more I found myself in love with an Angeleno, and with L.A., too."

After obsessively scrolling real estate listings and touring just two properties, they fell for the second: a Georgian-style house designed in 1938 by California architect Gerard Colcord.

"As we pulled up the drive, it just seemed...magical," Jonathan recalls. "It sat on a little over an acre, and with its lush lawn and massive California sycamores, it looked like a park. Which is why when we first brought the kids by the property, they dubbed it the Park House."

Peter Yang/Drew + Jonathan

They put an offer on the place in early May of 2020, closed in June and planned to be in by Christmas of that year after updating a few bathrooms.

Unfortunately, like any episode of one of Jonathan's shows, the renovation process came with a few surprises. There was water damage and some shoddy older updates, plus a new earthquake code for the state of California to comply with.

"This dream home would become the largest residential renovation I had ever done in my career," writes Jonathan. Then came the pandemic, and a host of other delays due to shuttered permit offices and supply chain issues.

After renovating more than 500 homes for other families, Jonathan was unfazed. "We have each other, and we have time — the rest of our lives together in this house. Our house. Our dream home, where we'll see the kids grow up laughing and adventuring in the yard, where we'll play host to friends and family," he writes.

RELATED VIDEO: Zooey Deschanel and Jonathan Scott Say Quarantine Helped Strengthen Their Bond: 'I'll Hold onto This One'

Having to take the place apart had a silver lining, too: They found an opportunity to implement a host of eco-friendly features. Jonathan is a longtime advocate for green building (he recently self-produced a documentary about the importance of solar energy) and Zooey is an eco crusader (she's a co-founder of hydroponic gardening start-up Lettuce Grow).

The house now has fossil-fuel-free heating and cooling, a solar-paneled roof, a gray water system, and is serving as a test case for a new type of insulation, "probably making Park House one of the most efficient homes in the country," says Jonathan. It's "a five-bedroom home with a smaller carbon footprint than that of your average small condo."

Steve Granitz/WireImage

Unlike an episode of Property Brothers, Jonathan points out, the homeowners in this renovation see eye to eye on almost everything.

"I knew what our roles would be ever since Zooey appeared on Celebrity IOU, when I discovered she absolutely loathes demolition. I clearly would be the construction lead and Zooey would be my liaison designer," he writes. "As a couple undertaking a massive renovation project, if the most you're disagreeing on is sink placement and recessed lighting, you're probably doing well."

Now, Jonathan is looking forward to the best part of any project: "I want the reveal to be perfect," he writes. "I'm sure we'll change a few things once we move in, swap some furniture. But overall I want it as close to her vision as possible because I know, like her, it will be beautiful, eclectic, and wonderfully unique."

Read Jonathan's full essay and see more photos in the Brilliant Home issue of Drew + Jonathan Reveal, on newsstands January 7. And subscribe to follow Jonathan and Zooey's renovation and see the finished home in an upcoming issue of Reveal. Use this link to get a discount on a full year subscription for $15.

Updated by

Mackenzie Schmidt

Mackenzie Schmidt

Mackenzie Schmidt is the Home and Travel Editor for PEOPLE. She's worked at PEOPLE for over five years as a writer and editor on the Lifestyle team.

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