EXCLUSIVE: Daughter of America’s Richest Self-Made Woman Billionaire Lifts the Lid on Truth Behind Her Family’s Multimillion-Dollar Revival of Wisconsin’s ‘Worst City’

The daughter of one of America’s most successful businesswomen has opened up about the pressure she is facing to carry on her mother’s yearslong fight to revive their crime-ridden Wisconsin hometown—a battle that has seen the family pouring millions into transforming the area’s crumbling real estate.

Billionaire Diane Hendricks, 78, the CEO and co-founder of ABC Supply—one of the largest wholesale distributors of roofing, siding, and windows in the U.S., according to Forbes—has, for the last 10 years, invested much of her impressive fortune into reviving Beloit, WI, the town in which she and her husband began and built their business.

Now, her daughter, Konya Hendricks Schuh, has made that dream her own, focusing her efforts on the city’s residential properties, many of which have been abandoned and left to crumble—turning once-vibrant neighborhoods into rotting ghost towns.

Her efforts are at the center of a new reality TV series, aptly titled “Betting on Beloit,” which premieres on July 12 on A&E and documents Konya’s attempts to transform some of Beloit’s most decaying dwellings.

The Hendricks family’s goal of bringing their once-thriving city back to life is by no means an easy feat—and while they are reluctant to share specific details about how much it has cost them, it is estimated to be many millions of dollars.

Yet it is one that Konya says her family will not waver on, admitting that they are unrelenting in their desire to pay back what they see as a “debt of gratitude” to Beloit.

“Beloit is where [my parents] got their first business loan, it’s where they started all of their businesses,” she tells Realtor.com® ahead of her new show’s premiere. “At that point in time, they had been turned down by a lot of other communities. So, we—my mom, especially—feel a true debut of gratitude to the community and its people.”

Hendricks, who has a net worth of $22.3 billion, launched ABC Supply with her late husband, Ken Hendricks, in Beloit in 1982, having relocated to the area in the 1970s.

At the time, Beloit was home to a number of large companies; however, many of those employers began moving overseas in the 1990s in a bid to lower costs, forcing many of the city’s residents to move elsewhere to find work.

The movement pushed Beloit to the brink of “crisis,” leaving multiple buildings abandoned, the local economy in shambles, and employment numbers in dire straits—while crime soared.

Over the past 10 years, Hendricks has taken major strides toward a bigger and better Beloit, buying up all manner of properties—from abandoned country clubs and golf courses to derelict residential dwellings—restoring them before putting them back on the market.

“Rising from humble beginnings to owning the largest wholesale construction supplier in the nation, Diane settled in the area in the 1970s and became a titan of industry—and one of Beloit’s biggest employers—helping build up the region as an industrial epicenter where thousands flocked to achieve the American dream,” a press release shared with Realtor.com® explains.

“While Diane’s headquarters remained local, the 1990s saw too many industrial employers move overseas, forcing many residents of Beloit to find opportunity elsewhere.

“Determined to restore Beloit to its former glory, Diane has spent the last several decades working to improve the city through major economic development efforts.

“In addition to building a new stadium and school, hotels and multiple restaurants, Diane revitalized the entire industrial riverfront, finding new uses for the once-abandoned factory buildings.”

While Hendricks’ work is far from complete, her efforts appear to be paying off. Realtor.com data finds that the median list price has risen from $85,000 in summer 2016 to $265,000 in May 2025, an increase of more than 211% in less than 10 years.

Now, however, she’s passing the torch to Konya and her husband, Matt, a plumbing contractor and former homebuilder, tasking them with tackling the revitalization of the city’s many historic homes.

Yet Konya is also fulfilling another very important role—namely, in shining a spotlight on Beloit and the family’s tireless efforts to bring it back to life, something she says her mother never really felt comfortable doing.

“My mom is not a big fan of the camera,” she admits. “She’s had fun with the process [of filming the show] and she’s been a great sport; she’s in all the episodes, but she has never sought out the limelight at all—quite the opposite.

“She’s lived a pretty humble life here in Wisconsin, and she doesn’t do a lot of interviews and things. So I went to her and just said, ‘If our mission is to change the reputation of Beloit and change this narrative, I think it would be great to try and chronicle this journey. That way we can show the whole country and the whole world what Beloit is about.’

“I want people to see why we think Beloit is special. It’s very much an underdog in Wisconsin and people, especially in the Midwest, have given it a very bad rap. And a lot of these people haven’t visited it in many, many years, but they still talk about it in a really negative way.

“I think my mom said ‘yes’ to the show because she’s doing it for the city. She said she’d love it if I stayed as the face of it, but there’s no way to tell Beloit’s story without telling my mom’s story.”

Yet Konya’s own work in Beloit marks a new chapter of that story—which has largely been focused on commercial real estate in the city, up until now.

“My mom has always been the driving force behind redeveloping the industrial riverfront,” Konya explains. “She’s [built] two hotels and we have another that is going to be started within a year. Lots of restaurants, our minor league baseball stadium, part of our local hospital…

“My mom has been 100% committed to the town for most of her adult life and she’s still involved, but she’s really tasking me to carry the torch forward in the family. And even though she’s done so much in the commercial and industrial parts of the town, we really hadn’t tackled some of these residential neighborhoods.

“So that’s that’s the shift. And she has kind of put that on my shoulders. To do that and be this part of what is hopefully a comeback story for our town.”

With that job comes what Konya admits is a lot of “pressure,” noting that, while her mother is her best friend, she doesn’t hesitate to remind her daughter of the importance of their role in Beloit.

“She’s my best friend and she’s very good in a lot of ways, but she also has a very high bar,” she explains. “She does want these houses done right. Anything we do also represents her and represents my family. So, with that alone, there’s just a lot of responsibility.”

Luckily, Konya seems more than capable of shouldering that hefty weight.

Thus far, she and her team—including her husband, Matt; good friend and project manager, Pete; her real estate agent nephew, Connor; and local artisans and designer friends, Kristin and Mitch—have overseen the renovation of multiple homes in Beloit’s Park District.

When it comes to choosing the homes, she explains that they aren’t looking for quick flips that will net them a tidy profit—in fact, she admits that they have yet to see any return on their investment. But, she insists, making money wasn’t ever a consideration.

“Everything for us is really about the transformation; we look for the worst homes in the neighborhood, the houses that no one wants to touch because they’re going to be too expensive to bring back,” Konya explains. “They’re not even habitable for rentals, they’re just continuing to decay.

“Honestly—and I hope this doesn’t go on forever—but so far, we’ve actually lost money on all of these projects. But even with that being said, my mom says, ‘No, I don’t view it that way. I view this as an investment in the community.'”

While the real estate expert focused her efforts on that neighborhood because of its plethora of old and dilapidated homes, she was stunned to discover that it actually holds a very special place in her family’s history.

“I found out that the first house that my mom ever bought, where she lived on the first floor and rented the second to some college girls, was actually in Park District. My family has a lot of history there,” Konya shares.