Megan Navarro
WIMBERLEY — Ian and Sage Summers represented the Wimberley community well by winning season five of the FOX TV show, LEGO Masters.
The televised competition puts together teams of two from across the United States and Canada to compete each week during brick-building challenges in hopes to win a $100,000 prize, along with the LEGO Master trophy and title, as previously reported by the News-Dispatch. The Summers siblings were announced as the season’s winner, out of 11 teams, when the finale aired July 28.
Ian, 23, and Sage, 21, have been major fans of the show since the first season’s trailer was aired and they knew from the get-go that they wanted to be in the competition when they reached the age requirement. Once they reached that point, they, according to a previous News-Dispatch article, auditioned for season four and got called back for season five after they were putting their names out there by posting their own LEGO builds on Instagram.
“When I saw that trailer that there was a competition about building LEGO and you get to be paired up with your partner, I knew from that moment that my sister and I would be the perfect team to try out for the show,” Ian said.
They don’t remember when LEGO first came into their lives because it’s always been in their house, to the point where they recreated their hometown of Wimberley through bricks and Sage would always challenge Ian by wanting him to create certain builds, therefore sharpening his skills even further: “I always say she was my first brick master that would come up and tell me exactly what she wanted,” Ian said.
Winning the fifth season of LEGO Masters is hard to comprehend for them, but if they were to put the feeling into words, they would say it’s a dream come true. Also, they both shared that it’s a surreal feeling to inspire other kids, recalling that they looked up to the winners of previous seasons when they were younger.
“Just being on it was crazy, so to say that we are LEGO Masters now is such a surreal thing to say and to do it with my brother was a dream come true … It almost feels like giving back because whenever LEGO Masters contestants would talk to us or we were on the show, they're always super nice and they really inspired us to go on the show,” Sage said. “So, then whenever a brother and sister come up to us, they're like, ‘Oh my goodness, we're big fans,’ it feels like we're giving back to the LEGO Master community because we're able to inspire kids like previous season kids did for us.”
During the competition, Ian and Sage competed in a variety of challenges, including those themed around "Star Wars," "Batman" and "Wicked," along with others based around a waterfall, wedding cakes, a masquerade party, the '90s and more. Their goal throughout was to make every episode like it was their last and while also focusing on the challenge at hand, they also remembered that it was like they were playing with LEGO’s in their own house.
They knew their style — based around humor, storytelling and color — played with their strengths and decided early on that they were going to embrace it, which they felt was what made them stand out in the competition.
“My favorite was the masquerade challenge because I thought it was really cool how you could incorporate fashion and LEGO together and I thought it was really cool how you could come up with something that no one has seen before,” Sage recalled. “I also enjoyed the waterfall challenge because building the gator was a lot of fun.”
“My favorite personal challenges that we did were the ‘Is it Brick?’ challenge because at home, that's what I love to build, that's like my wheelhouse, whether that be like pop culture, one-to-one scale items or just everyday, mundane items, that's really what I love to do. To get that challenge, I was just so thrilled to be able to participate in that challenge with my sister,” Ian said. “For the Batman challenge, that also was super fun … I feel like the LEGO Batman Movie aesthetic really fit in our style and to get LEGO Batman with Will Arnett being the host and being the voice of Batman and to hear him come up to our table and do the iconic Batman voice was such a cool moment.”
The show wrapped up filming at the end of 2023; since then, the two have been non-stop building LEGO and continuing to fulfill their passion, including attending the BrickFair Convention in Virginia. They will be flying to Denmark in September, where Ian’s mockups will be displayed at the LEGO House. Along with that, they are continuing to run their small pet sitting business.
Because they are young, Ian and Sage are saving the $100,000 cash prize for the future.
Though they have been on a national competition show, the Summers siblings have not lost their love for their small community of Wimberley.
“Being able to represent Wimberley on such a big stage was so rewarding. We love our small town, so we knew that they'd be cheering us on through it and so, to be able to win for them was definitely a reward in itself,” Sage said.
“It just goes to show that anybody, anywhere, in any small town, can do great things,” Ian shared. “It doesn’t matter where you are or what you do, you can accomplish amazing things.”
