Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

From left: Sarah Jane Ruppert, 8, Elena Maddy, 7, Jeremiah Sarver-Wolf, 8, and Mary Chadwick, 7, wait for instructions during dance lessons at the Center of Dance in Blacksburg.

The Roanoke Times | File July

Carol Crawford Smith teaches her teenage ballet class this summer.

Then: "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" winner Carol Crawford Smith was forced from her troubled Draper Road dance studio in Blacksburg in July by flooding from a chronically leaky roof that rendered the building unsafe. Blacksburg Building Official Cathy Cook closed the structure, which had housed the Center of Dance since 1994, to the public pending extensive repairs.

That same month, Cook worked with Collegiate Square owner Bob Pack to relocate the studio, which is Crawford Smith's main source of income. In 2005, Crawford Smith, a retired Dance Theatre of Harlem soloist stricken with multiple sclerosis, won a new Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant home from ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

It's estimated that 4,000 volunteers, including 300 local businesses, contributed labor and materials totaling about $2 million to the makeover project. As part of the remodel, volunteers installed about $300,000 of upgrades in the Draper Road studio.

ABC producers and Crawford Smith expected the building's roof, which had leaked on and off for years, to be repaired to protect the renovations. For a time, those responsible for the building -- David Branch of Blue Ridge Realty in Blacksburg, William and Robert Cranwell of Florida and David Frizzell of Blacksburg, according to town records -- waived Crawford Smith's rent. But the roof began leaking again shortly after ABC left town.

Cook was called out for code violations several times before closing the structure to the public in July. Then the building official contacted Pack to ask whether he had any spaces available for Crawford Smith's studio. He did.

Volunteers again rallied around the dance teacher and helped move her studio to Collegiate Square.

Now: The Center of Dance is open and doing well. Crawford Smith said she was able to purchase special flooring -- called a "sprung floor" -- for the larger dance space.

"So the dancers are dancing safely," she said.

Crawford Smith was honored in August by the Dance Life Teacher Conference with that group's Lifetime Achievement Award.

The old studio building in the 200 block of Draper Road reopened to the public in October, after the owners replaced the roof, Cook said.