There are very few people in Canada who can honestly say they have won a Grey Cup, built a thriving contracting business, and become a beloved face on national television all before the age of 50. Sebastian Clovis is one of them. He is the kind of guy who grew up swinging a hammer in a Toronto east-end home and somehow parlayed that early love of building into a career that has taken him from the football field to the HGTV studio. His story is genuinely worth knowing.
Early Life and Age: Born in London, Built in Toronto
A Childhood That Shaped Everything
Sebastian James Clovis was born on September 1, 1979, in London, England. As of 2025, he is 45 years old. When he was just six years old, his family immigrated to Canada and settled in the east end of Toronto a neighbourhood that, by his own account, gave him everything he needed to become who he is today. It was in that Toronto family home where Sebastian Clovis was first introduced to carpentry and hands-on building, experiences that quietly planted the seeds of a career he would build decades later.
He attended Neil McNeil High School, an all-boys Catholic school in Toronto, where he distinguished himself as a competitive athlete in both track and field and football. He later transferred to Senator O’Connor College School, where he played on the senior boys football team and continued sharpening the athletic discipline that would carry him through university and into professional sport. His early years in Toronto were formative in every sense athletically, academically, and practically.
Family Background: Roots Across Three Continents
The Parents Behind the Personality
Sebastian Clovis comes from a genuinely multicultural background that reflects Canada at its most diverse. His father, Chris, was born in St. Lucia and works as a high school science teacher. His mother, Clare, was born in Kenya and is a nurse. Sebastian himself was born in England before the family made their life in Canada. As he once put it on social media, “Pops was born in St Lucia, Moms was born in Kenya, I was born in England” a line that says a lot about the richness of his family story.
He is the eldest of five siblings, a detail that likely shaped his sense of responsibility and leadership from an early age. His brother Tristan Clovis also went on to play professional football in the CFL, suiting up as a safety for the Saskatchewan Roughriders after being drafted in 2006. The Clovis family’s connection to Canadian football runs deep, and both brothers carved out legitimate careers at the highest level of the game in this country. That shared athletic pedigree speaks volumes about the environment in which they were raised.
Relationship Status: A Partner in Life and Work
Sebastian Clovis and Ayanna Augustine
Sebastian Clovis keeps his personal life relatively private, but what is publicly known suggests he has found both a life partner and a creative collaborator in designer Ayanna Augustine. The two work together professionally through his contracting business, and their partnership has been acknowledged publicly on his official website, where he describes how he and Augustine have developed a shared process for crafting homes that reflect their clients’ individual visions and lifestyles.
Augustine has also appeared on his HGTV series Gut Job as a guest designer, and their on-screen chemistry has been warmly received by audiences. While neither has shared extensive details about the personal side of their relationship, the public-facing professional collaboration suggests a close and committed bond. Their work together represents a meeting of construction expertise and interior design sensibility that has resonated with viewers and homeowners alike. It is a genuine partnership in every sense of the word.
Children: What Is Known
Family Life Away from the Cameras
Details about Sebastian Clovis’s children are not widely publicized, which is consistent with the private approach he and those close to him take toward their family life. Some reports have referenced that he is a father, and glimpses of his personal world occasionally appear on his social media. However, Sebastian has been deliberate about keeping his children shielded from the intensity of public attention that comes with television fame. That decision is entirely understandable and speaks to his grounded sense of priorities he is, at heart, a builder who values real life over curated public image.
What does come through clearly in his public persona is that family matters deeply to Sebastian. His work on shows like Gut Job frequently centres on helping families create homes that truly serve their lives. That empathy for the people he works with, and the genuine care he shows for the families in his projects, likely reflects values cultivated in his own home long before the cameras started rolling.
Achievements: Two Careers, One Remarkable Story
From the CFL to HGTV
Sebastian Clovis has lived what can only be described as a dual career of remarkable breadth. His first chapter unfolded in Canadian professional football. After earning his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia where he played for the Huskies and was twice named a CIS All-Canadian in 2003 and 2004 he entered the 2005 CFL Draft and was selected by the BC Lions in the fourth round as the 34th overall pick.
His early professional football years were difficult. He spent his first season on the Lions’ practice roster after tearing his ACL, one of the most gruelling injuries a football player can face. He fought back. He returned for the 2006 season and played all 18 regular season games as the Lions marched to a Grey Cup championship one of the most coveted titles in Canadian sport. Then, in 2007, fate dealt another blow: a second ACL tear ended his season early. Most athletes would have walked away. Sebastian went through a second round of reconstructive surgery and came back again.
Football Career Highlights
He was subsequently traded to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and then transferred to the Saskatchewan Roughriders, where he finished out his CFL playing career. His nickname, “The Missile,” captured something essential about his style of play fast, precise, and hard to stop. In addition to his 2006 Grey Cup championship with the Lions, he was a two-time Vanier Cup champion at the university level (2001 and 2002) and earned an OFSAA gold medal in high school.
Building a Second Career from the Ground Up
After retiring from professional football, Sebastian didn’t drift. Instead, he trained as a construction contractor and built his own company, Clovis & Co Contracting, which operates as a licensed general contracting business based in the Greater Toronto Area. His work there laid the foundation literally and figuratively for what came next.
In 2014, he debuted on HGTV Canada as the host of Tackle My Reno, a show that guided overwhelmed homeowners through DIY challenges. That single season led to a relaunch in 2016 as Save My Reno, which ran for four seasons and saw Sebastian co-host alongside Sabrina Smelko and later Samantha Pynn. The show helped budget-conscious homeowners complete meaningful renovations, and it built Sebastian a loyal national audience who loved his combination of practical skill and warm, encouraging energy on screen.
In 2022, he launched Gut Job on HGTV Canada, produced by Great Pacific Media in partnership with Corus Studios. The series tackled the biggest, most complex renovation projects imaginable homes that required structural gutting and near-complete rebuilds. The show received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Lifestyle Program or Series at the 11th Canadian Screen Awards in 2023, a recognition that affirmed what his audience already knew: Sebastian Clovis is one of the best renovation hosts working in Canadian television. Altogether, he has now hosted five series for HGTV Canada, a remarkable body of work by any measure.
Net Worth: The Value of Building Two Careers
Estimated Wealth and Income Sources
Sebastian Clovis has built his net worth through a combination of professional football earnings, his contracting business, and a decade-plus of television work. His estimated net worth sits in the range of $2 million to $5 million, with various sources citing figures across that spectrum depending on how his business assets and television income are calculated. His contracting company, Clovis & Co, continues to operate as a real, functioning business not just a television backdrop which contributes meaningfully to his overall financial picture.
His television career with HGTV Canada has spanned more than a decade and five separate series, providing consistent income alongside the revenue generated by his contracting work. Furthermore, his growing public profile has opened doors to brand partnerships, speaking engagements, and design-related collaborations that add additional streams to his earnings. For someone who has effectively built two successful careers from scratch, his financial trajectory reflects exactly the kind of disciplined work ethic one might expect.
Recent Activities: Still Building, Still Inspiring
What Sebastian Clovis Is Up to in 2025
Sebastian Clovis remains active across both his professional worlds. His contracting business continues to take on major renovation projects throughout the Greater Toronto Area, with Ayanna Augustine contributing the interior design vision that has become a hallmark of their collaborative approach. Together, they have developed a reputation for delivering homes that are not just structurally sound but genuinely beautiful and deeply personal to the families who live in them.
On the television side, Gut Job has continued to build its audience since its 2022 premiere, and Sebastian remains a fixture in Canadian lifestyle media. He appeared on The Good Stuff with Mary Berg in early 2024 alongside Ayanna Augustine for a family room makeover segment, demonstrating the kind of warm, accessible presence that has made him such an enduring figure on Canadian screens. His social media activity continues to give fans a window into his renovation work, his personal perspective, and the values that drive him.
More than anything, what stands out about Sebastian Clovis in 2025 is his consistency. He is the same person who grew up learning to build in a Toronto east-end home, who fought back from two ACL tears to win a Grey Cup, and who turned a love of construction into a television career that has inspired thousands of Canadian homeowners. That is not luck. That is character.
