When I was a girl, my parents had an old 1950s hardcover of The House at Pooh Corner that they read stories to us from at bedtime. My family loved Pooh and all of his friends. When my kids were little, it was my turn to read from that battered blue book.

So I was excited to hear that the charming country retreat where author A. A. Milne was inspired to write about Pooh for his son Christopher is on the market for £2 million (about $3.1 m). Let’s take a look!

A. A. Milne bought Cotchford Farm in 1925 as a country retreat for his family.

“It was here, amidst the beautiful Sussex countryside and surrounding woodland where the wonderful stories of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh came to life,” the listing says.

This 3-story, Grade II Listed Country House dates back to the mid-16th century (with later additions).

The house has 6 bedrooms and 3 baths.

It had another famous owner–Brian Jones, the musician and founder of The Rolling Stones, lived here until his death in 1969.

The property sits on 9.5 acres.

The garden has stone statues of Christopher Robin and characters from the Pooh stories.

“The local area is now commonly referred to as ‘Pooh Country,’” the listing says, “and places in the books such as the 500-acre wood, Galleons Lap, Poohsticks bridge and Pooh Corner are all based on nearby locations.”

“The remainder of land comprises a partially fenced field with a stream running along the southern wooded boundary. ‘Pooh Sticks Bridge’ is half a mile up stream.”

For more photos and information about the property, check the Savills UK listing and Curbed. (Thanks to all the readers who wrote me about it!)

More Authors’ Houses:

• Mary Kay Andrews Beach House
• Sarah Ban Breathnach’s English Cottage
• Emily Giffin’s Traditional Southern Home

This classic red-brick house is the one that Steve Martin’s character Neal owned in the 1987 John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains & Automobiles. He spent most of the movie trying to get back to it in time for Thanksgiving.

Now it’s on the market in Kenilworth, Illinois, for $1.799 million. Here’s how it looks today:

John Candy played Del in the movie, who ends up traveling with Neal.

Interspersed with scenes of them being stranded in airports, sleeping in seedy motels (“those aren’t pillows!”), and watching their rental car go up in flames, we saw Neal’s wife and 3 kids back at the house, waiting for him to get home.

We only get a few glimpses inside the house…

So it surprised me to read on the IMDb website that 7 interior sets were built for Neal’s house. It took them 5 months to create them and cost $100,000, “which angered Paramount executives and caused turmoil on the set.”

If they spent all the time and money on them, I wish they would have filmed more of the rooms for us!

The blue tile in the kitchen doesn’t seem to go with anything else in the house:

Love the headboard in their bedroom and wish we could’ve seen more of it:

Okay, so here’s how the real interior of the house looks in the listing today:

It was built in 1916:

“Stately, red brick center entry Colonial…with 3 car garage, 2 blocks to Lake Michigan, features 6 bedrooms, 3.2 baths, first floor library, sunroom, first family room, eat in kitchen, finished basement & 3rd floor!”

Like it? For more photos and information, check the listing by Barbara Mawicke of Coldwell Banker. (Thanks to Sue for telling me about it!)

A lot of people have pointed out the similarities between the Planes house and the one from John Hughes’ classic comedy Home Alone, which was on the market recently, as well. Some have even asked if they’re the same house–but as you can see below, they’re different.

Let’s compare the two, shall we? Here’s another shot of the Planes house:

And the one from Home Alone, which is bigger and lacks the third dormer that the Planes house has.

It’s one of my favorite movie houses ever. You can see the interior photos of it here:

The Real Home Alone House For Sale in Winnetka, Illinois.

Hooked on Houses from John Hughes Movies?

• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
  
• Miracle on 34th Street
• Home Alone
• National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
• Mr. Mom

If you watched Selling Spelling Manor on HGTV like I did, then you saw Candy Spelling moving all of her stuff out of the ginormous 56,000 square-foot house when it was bought by the 23-year old British heiress Petra Ecclestone for $85 million.

In W Magazine, Petra let cameras inside to see some of the work she’s had done on the old place. Here’s how the grand entry hall and staircase looked when we last saw it as Candy left for the last time:

On an episode of Selling Spelling Manor, a former neighbor dished with Candy that Petra had brought in a team that was remodeling the house and they were “painting everything black.”

Here’s how the entry hall looks now that Petra has given it a makeover:

According to W:

“The interior of the Manor, once the domain of acres of chintz…has been Petra-fied. Designed in three weeks and installed in nine, a feat that required 500 workers and the tireless attention of the celebrity designer-builder Gavin Brodin, the house has been transformed from an old Dynasty-like set to a massive VIP lounge.

“Five thousand square feet of white marble lashed with thick black stripes pave the foyer; black carpet streaks up the sweeping double staircase to the second floor. Dark velvets line the walls, and little crystals sparkle everywhere.”

Check out the March 2012 issue of W to read the story. (Photos by Roe Ethridge.)

Meanwhile, Candy Spelling downsized to a luxury $47 million penthouse condo in The Century building that has a mere 16,500 square feet–the size of her former attic! Hope she can make it work. I’m sure it’ll be an adjustment.

Her daughter Tori Spelling downsized this year, too, moving her family of 5 into a much cozier 3-bedroom home in Malibu.

Last week Tori announced on her website that they’re expecting Baby #4. Wonder if they’ll be building an addition onto their new place or if the babies will share a nursery?

• Tori & Dean’s New House in Malibu
• The House in Encino Tori & Dean Sold
• More Photos of Spelling Manor During Candy’s Reign

In the early ’70s, a now-classic documentary was made about Jackie Kennedy’s aunt, Edith Bouvier Beale, and her daughter, known as “Little Edie,” who were living together in a broken-down family mansion in East Hampton. In 2009 the HBO movie Grey Gardens introduced a new generation to the story–and the beautiful old estate they lived in.

There’s a new house on the market in Massachusetts that was inspired by the HBO version of Grey Gardens in its heyday (shown above). But first, let’s take a look at how it looked in the movie:

Production designer Kalina Ivanov did an amazing job recreating the rooms and bringing them to life.

In the movie, Jessica Lange played the eccentric Big Edie, and Drew Barrymore was her daughter, Little Edie.

Sadly, by the time the documentary was filmed in 1973, the real-life Grey Gardens had deteriorated to this:

Hard to believe the women were still living there amid the filth and rotted floorboards–not to mention raccoons and other critters. Albert Maysles, one of the directors of the documentary, said the most difficult thing about filming it was the condition of the home: “The first thing you noticed was the smell from all the animals,” he said.

Here’s a screenshot of it from the original film, when it looked abandoned:

In 1984, Architectural Digest featured the iconic house, which had been bought in 1979 by Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and his wife, writer Sally Quinn. Here’s how it looked then, after its restoration:

You can see how similar the real entry hall and staircase is to the one in the movie I showed you above:

AD photos taken by Peter Vitale.

Even if I hadn’t told you these photos were taken in the ’80s, I bet you would’ve guessed, right?

Here’s how the exterior of the real house looks today:

Which brings me to the reason why I started looking at photos of Grey Gardens again in the first place–a newly built home in Falmouth, Massachusetts, which was inspired by it.

The homeowner, Michael E. Jaye, saw photos of the house from the HBO movie and told his architect, Leonard J. Baum, that he wanted the exterior to look like it (shown at the top of the post, with the shutters). Here’s the result:

It’s not as large as the original, and the interior layout isn’t the same, but the front and sides look the way the real one did at the turn of the century, shutters and all.

The interior has a lighter, less formal feel to it than the original.

The new house has 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, and about 4,000 square feet. It’s on the market for $2.995 million.

I really like the rugs in these rooms.

Thanks to Betty for telling me about this house. I love it!

It sits on nearly 2 acres overlooking Oyster Pond in Upper Cape Cod. The listing says:

“Enjoy swimming from your private dock, exploring the Salt Pond Bird Sanctuary Conservation area across the street, walking to the sandy beach on Vineyard Sound or biking the Shining Sea Bikeway.”

If you could build a house inspired by one you’ve seen on TV or in the movies, which one would it be? It’s hard for me to choose–I love so many!–but today I’m thinking I wouldn’t mind living in a version of Kate Winslet’s English cottage from The Holiday. I could also go for the beach house from Something’s Gotta Give. Or this one from Grey Gardens!

For more photos and information:

• The listing with Robert Paul Properties
• An article on Cape News about the house
• The 1984 article in Architectural Digest

I love new houses that are built to look old. Click here to see more!

I f you lived through the 1990s, then you probably remember Sarah Ban Breathnach’s bestselling book with the pink cover called Simple Abundance, and you may even still have a copy sitting on a bookshelf somewhere. I do!

I found it very romantic when she bought Newton’s Chapel as her “writing sanctuary”–a 900-year old stone cottage in Lincolnshire that once belonged to Sir Isaac Newton. Who wouldn’t want to write in an historic cottage in the English countryside? So imagine my surprise when I got an email from Sarah herself this week telling me she’s selling it!

Here’s what she told me about it:

“I love your blog and wonder if you’d be so kind to let your readers know that my English writer’s sanctuary, which was Sir Isaac Newton’s private chapel, is now for sale.

“It’s adorable. Parts of it include a 12^th-century intact Norman Arch in the sitting room.  It’s got two bedrooms with en suite bathroom at either end of the Chapel, 2 fireplaces, a romantic garden bench around an old apple tree (no, not the one, but enough to give doses of enchantment!)

“Offers begin at $550,000 US.  It can come furnished so all you need to do is turn the key and begin your English idyll.”

Sounds good to me! Maybe it could be my “blogging sanctuary.”

The former owner still keeps an eye on the property:

Here’s how Sarah said she ended up buying the property and moving to England:

“I was in the airport in London, picked up the paper, and found the ad for the little cottage in Lincolnshire. My attention was caught, as I’ve always loved Isaac Newton. I just couldn’t forget the house, named Newton’s Chapel, with 900 years of history attached to it, so I went to see it a few weeks later and bought it the next day.”

A British newspaper once dubbed the successful author “the Isaac Newton of the simplicity movement,” so it seemed serendipitous when she ended up living here.

Although it was a private chapel when Newton’s family lived on the property, it was converted years ago to a tiny cottage.

Love seeing the old hardware on the doors:

Simple Abundance was kind of written in blog form before anyone knew what a blog was. You read a new installment each day of the year in which she told stories from her life and inspired her readers to try new things, like keeping a Gratitude Journal. Remember those? Even Oprah had one!

Years ago I took my mom to a Simple Abundance Retreat that was sponsored by a local Bed & Breakfast for Mother’s Day (Sarah wasn’t there–it was just inspired by her book). We had a great time drinking specialty teas, getting manicures, and listening to speakers talk about simplifying our lives. (Remember that, Mom? I could go for another retreat like that right now!)

Love this pair of old windowseats:

John Conduitt, who was Newton’s assistant, described the “apple event” when he wrote about the mathematician’s life and mentioned the property in Lincolnshire:

“In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought.”

The cottage was featured in the December 2002 issue of Victoria magazine, all decked out for Christmas:

Her most recent book is Peace and Plenty: Finding Your Path to Financial Serenity.

Thanks to Sarah for telling me about this special property! You can see more photos of the cottage and learn more about it on the Simple Abundance website.

(The author’s photograph was taken by Vicki Couchman for USA Today. Victoria photos by David Montgomery.)

P.S If you love Cottages, I have an entire page devoted to them!

If you like pink as much as the late cosmetics queen Mary Kay Ash did, then the house she built in Dallas might be just the place for you. The pink mansion sits on over an acre of land in Old Preston Hollow and is on the market for $3.3 million. Take a look!

In this close-up of the front door you get a better idea of how pink the house really is:

The mansion, which was designed by Dallas Design Group in 1984, is nearly 12,000 square feet. Mary Kay herself felt it was too big and moved back to the house she had lived in before this one in her later years.

The words “hotel lobby” came to mind when I saw the next room:

The current owners have neutralized much of the house, but there’s reportedly a pink quartz toilet that remains in one of the bathrooms.

Mary Kay started her cosmetics company in 1963. I think it’s the first makeup I ever tried, since that’s what my mom always had on her vanity.

There are 6 bedrooms and 8 baths. This one is so big (320 square feet, 2 stories tall, with an open loft above) it’s kind of ridiculous. And how would you like to wake up with the sun streaming through those windows every morning?

When I was researching this post, I stumbled onto a website called Pink Truth that sets out to debunk the myths about selling Mary Kay Cosmetics–mainly that you can’t really make money doing it (it’s all about recruiting). Have any of you sold it? Anyone earn a pink Cadillac?

The library is cozier:

The pool area was “copied from the legendary San Simeon estate in California:”

Want to live like a cosmetics legend? More photos and information in the listing by Karen Luter and in an article on Yahoo! (Thanks to all the readers who sent me info about it!)

P.S. This reminds me of Larry Dean’s pink mansion in Atlanta. Remember that one? It was even bigger than Mary Kay’s–a whopping 32,000 square feet:

It took 4 years to build and 15 years to finally sell, possibly because of the kinda crazy interiors (some of you liked them, but most of you…didn’t). It sold for $13.9 million and was then promptly demolished. You can read the whole story and see the photos here:

Larry Dean’s “Pink Elephant” in Atlanta

Who could forget the iconic four-story townhouse that Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly lived in on the Upper East Side? Now the real thing, where the exterior shots and some of the interior scenes were filmed for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is on the market for $5.85 million. (I’ll bet Holly paid a lot less than that to stay there in 1961!)

I thought it would be fun to compare how the building looked in the movie to how it looks now. It has changed so much in the past 50 years that I’m not sure I would have recognized it.

In the movie, which was based on a short novel by Truman Capote, the building sported green and white-striped awnings that must have blocked out most of the light coming into the rooms:

The front door was green, too:

Audrey Hepburn was not who Truman Capote had in mind for Holly. He pictured Marilyn Monroe in the role, but she turned it down. Kim Novac was reportedly offered the part, as well.

Hepburn was an unlikely actress to play the 19-year old country girl from Texas whose real name was Lulamae Barnes. For one thing, Hepburn was in her 30s; for another, her accent was anything but Texan. In the novella, a character says, “When she opens her mouth…you don’t know if she’s a hillbilly or an Okie or what.”

Hepburn herself felt she was miscast and said she was uncomfortable with the role. She essentially created a new–and memorable–version of Holly for the movie.

According to an article in the New York Times about the brownstone, most of the interiors were shot on a soundstage. However, the previous owners reported that it was used for some scenes, “with cameras perched outside so they could shoot into the rooms.” It’s believed that the party Holly hosted in a bed sheet, for example, was held in the real living room.

In the book, the story takes place during the war, in the 1940s. In the movie, it’s 1960.

Holly was a much more scandalous character in the original story, especially for those times. A lot of her rough edges were smoothed down for the movie–and so that Audrey Hepburn could play her.

I want to cry every time Holly throws “Cat” out of the cab, into the rain. Hepburn once said it was the worst thing she ever had to do in a movie.

See the little white “loveseat” in her living room? It’s a claw-foot tub cut in half.

Hepburn wears the same black dress about four times in the movie, but it looks different the way it’s styled and accessorized.

George Peppard played Holly’s upstairs neighbor Paul Varjak, a struggling writer who is “kept” by a wealthy woman.

I always want a better look at this screen in Holly’s bathroom:

She’s so thin in this movie that it’s hard to believe she gave birth to her son Sean only 3 months before filming began.

Paul’s apartment has been furnished by his “decorator,” a woman who goes by the name 2-E (they don’t explain it in the movie but it’s because her name is Emily Eustace).

In the novella, Holly and her neighbor were never lovers, she never finds the cat again after throwing it out of the cab, and she moves to Brazil in search of a rich husband. In the movie, she changes her mind and stays with Paul–and the cat, which they find in an alley.

Mr. Yunioshi was played by Mickey Rooney, pretending to be Japanese (different times, I know, but I cringe through those scenes). He lives in an apartment on the top floor:

Here’s how the townhouse looks today in the real estate listing:

It’s currently divided into two duplex apartments.

There’s even a solarium:

For more photos and information, check the listing with Corcoran. You can see the floorplans at Curbed and read about the current owner in the NYT article.

Remember the Stepmom House?

While we’re on the topic of real-life movie houses, I was excited to hear from the owner of the one where the Julia Roberts-Susan Sarandon movie Stepmom was filmed that it’s back on the market. The price has been reduced by a million or so and the new listing has more (and better) photos of the gorgeous old home in Upper Nyack, New York.

Check out my post about it for the updated information and pics:

The Real Stepmom (& Bounty Hunter) House

More Classic Movie Houses:

• Auntie Mame
• Please Don’t Eat the Daisies
• Mildred Pierce
• See ‘em all!

I wrote hundreds of posts this year about all kinds of houses, from humble cottages to outlandish mansions. Here are the 20 that got the most clicks and eyeballs in 2011:

#20. Spelling Manor: Most Expensive House in U.S.

#19. Dita Von Teese’s Glam Retro Style

 #18. The “Father of the Bride” House is For Sale…Sorta

#17. Tori Spelling & Dean McDermott’s House

#16. “Modern Family:” 3 Funny Families, 3 Houses

#15. Taylor Swift Buys Historic Nashville Estate

#14. Carrie & Big’s Apartment in “Sex and the City 2″

#13. Kate Hudson Buys Tudor Next Door

#12. Celine Dion at Home in Florida

#11. The Real “American Horror Story” House

#10. New York’s Skinniest House

 #9. Rachel Zoe’s New House (& Nursery!)

#8. The Truth About “Designed to Sell” on HGTV

#7. The Hamptons Beach Houses on the TV Show “Revenge”

#6. The Old Stone Farmhouse from “Marley & Me”

#5. The Duncan’s Denver Home on “Good Luck Charlie”

#4. A Real “Up” Movie House Built in Utah

#3. Lisa Vanderpump’s Mansion in Beverly Hills

#2. Jennifer Lopez’s New House in L.A.

#1. Jennifer Aniston’s House in Beverly Hills

Did any of your favorites make the list? I have to say I’m partial to the Taylor Swift post because my daughter Lily wrote it, and the one about “Good Luck Charlie” because she requested it for her birthday.

Many thanks to all of my readers for making 2011 such an amazing year. Wishing you all a wonderful 2012! -Julia

When I asked you which Christmas-movie houses you’d like to see that I hadn’t featured yet, I got a lot of requests for Orchard House from the 1994 version of Little Women.  I thought that was a great suggestion, so I watched it again over the weekend and revisited the warm and welcoming home of the March family. The sets in this one really are gorgeously done.

The exterior was built to look like the real Orchard House that was the longtime home of Amos Bronson Alcott and his family, including Louisa May Alcott who set her novel there. Here’s the real thing in Concord, Massachusetts, which looks almost identical to the movie version:

The exterior for the movie was built on Vancouver Island in a forest where there were two houses already built next to each other. They constructed new facades for each of them.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes shot of them filming outside the Orchard House facade:

The location was chosen because there was a second house already next door, which was necessary for the story (Laurie, played by a young Christian Bale, lived there), and the driveways connected.

The movie was filmed at the beginning of summer in Vancouver, so they had to add the snow to make it look like winter.

Laurie’s house is a complete facade in front of a real house that the owners continued living in during filming. The director, Gillian Armstrong, points out that it must have been dark in there!

Here’s a sample of one of the sketches done of how they wanted Orchard House to look–in this case the back of it:

And here’s how it looked in the movie:

The opening scenes of the town were shot in Deerfield, Massachusetts, in the winter (real snow). This was the first film that had ever been allowed to shoot there. They made an exception for Little Women because Louisa May Alcott was from the area.

The interiors of Orchard House were all built on a soundstage, and that’s where the majority of filming was done.

The Production Designer was Jan Roelfs and the Set Decorator was Jim Erickson. They really did an amazing job bringing these houses to life and making them feel like they were real, and had real history in them.

Gillian Armstrong, the director, explained in the DVD commentary that although the sets were built to resemble the real Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, where Louisa May Alcott lived, the rooms had to be built bigger to accommodate the filming equipment.

The colors are much starker and the look is more formal inside the real Orchard House, as you can see on the museum’s website. Lots of white walls.

Most of the furnishings in the Orchard House Museum belonged to the Alcott family, and the rooms are kept the way they did when they lived there. I’d love to see it in person someday.

The filmmakers wanted their version to look warmer than the real thing. They chose “restful, earthy colors in the greens and grays so everything blends together and feels as one in the home,” according to Armstrong.

The Alcott family bought a 12-acre apple orchard in 1858 that came with two early-18th century houses. They moved the smaller of the two houses onto the back of the larger one and named it Orchard House.

Alcott based the Little Women on her real sisters and gave them all different names except for Beth, who had died. She said she couldn’t bear to change her name–she wanted the character to be as exactly as she remembered her sister.

The house in the movie looks as sad as its inhabitants do after Beth’s death:

The fabulous Mary Wickes played Aunt March. (Loved her in White Christmas.) She died a year after the movie came out, in 1995.

The Dining Room:

Claire Danes was Beth:

The movie wasn’t greenlit until Winona Ryder, who was a rising star in the early ’90s, was cast as Jo. (I featured her house here if you missed it!)

The Kitchen:

The Bedrooms:

The cast had to take knitting and etiquette classes before filming so they would know how to behave like young ladies of the 1860s.

I thought Susan Sarandon was wonderful as their “Marmee.”

Look at the woodwork in this bedroom. Love it:

The shot of Beth’s empty bedroom after she dies chokes me up every time:

Meg gives birth at home–to twins:

The screenplay had the movie opening with the girls acting out one of Jo’s stories in the attic.

They later decided it made it too hard to get to know the characters, and the new beginning was shot of them wishing each other a Merry Christmas.

Here grown-up Amy (who was played by Kirsten Dunst in earlier scene) visits her sisters Beth and Jo in the attic. Amy, who was a budding artist in the novel, was based on Alcott’s sister May. She never became a successful artist as she hoped. She illustrated the first edition of Little Women, but her artwork got negative reviews.

May/Amy did, however, teach Daniel Chester French, who became an artist and sculptor. She gave him the tools that he eventually used to sculpt the statue of Lincoln that sits in the Lincoln Memorial. Pretty cool, right?

When May died, she left behind a 2-year old girl called Lulu. Alcott took the toddler in and raised her.

Meg kissing her future husband John (Eric Stoltz) at the front door:

One major change Alcott made in the story is the ending. Jo falls in love with a German professor and marries him. But in real life, the author had no real interest in men and never married.

In one interview she gave, she explained that she had decided to be a lifelong spinster “because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.”

She did, however, have a romance during her time in Europe with Ladislas Wisniewski. She later said that “Laddie” was the model for the character of Laurie in the book.

Little Women was one of my favorite books as a girl. This is the copy I had on my shelves, and I must have read it a hundred times. Anyone else have this illustrated Junior edition?

I told my husband that I wished I still had my old copy, and he found one on eBay for me for Christmas. How sweet is that? It was one of my favorite gifts this year. Looking at the illustrations in the book really brings back memories of poring over the book when I was little and wishing I had a house full of sisters like theirs!

P.S. Visit my Movie Houses page to see if your favorite onscreen houses have been featured!

The holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life wasn’t a big hit when it hit theaters in 1946. It was nominated for several Oscars but didn’t win any. Then it was kind of forgotten, until it was rediscovered by a new generation who grew up watching it every December on TV.

Today it’s hard to imagine Christmas without revisiting George and Mary Bailey and their “drafty old house,” as he calls it, in Bedford Falls.

George and Mary walk past their future house, when it’s still empty and in disrepair:

Bedford Falls was a huge set built on the RKO Ranch in Encino, California. It took two months of construction and was one of the longest sets ever created for a movie. It ran 3 city blocks with 75 stores and buildings and covered 4 acres.

They transplanted 20 full-grown oak trees into the town to make it look like it had been there much longer than it had.

The remains of Bedford Falls on the RKO ranch were razed in the mid-1950s. There are only two surviving locations–the swimming pool in Beverly Hills High School and the Martini house in La Cañada Flintridge, California.

Capra’s inspiration for Bedford Falls was reportedly Seneca Falls, a small town in New York (you can read about it in this interesting article: The Real Bedford Falls). They have an annual “It’s a Wonderful Life” festival there every December.

For the winter scenes, the special effects crew used 3,000 tons of shaved ice and created “chemical snow.” Until then, movies used cornflakes painted white, but they made so much noise when actors walked on them that the dialogue would have to be dubbed.

The movie won an Academy Award for its snow. They really were special effects, too. It was filmed during a heat wave in California.

Mary Hatch’s house, where George visits and angrily insists that he never wants to get married:

Capra always had only one George Bailey in mind: Jimmy Stewart. But W.C. Fields was considered for the role of Uncle Billy (who was ultimately played by Thomas Mitchell). Jean Arthur passed on the role of Mary before Donna Reed was offered the part. And Henry Travers was considered for several roles in the movie before he became Clarence.

After their honeymoon gets abruptly canceled, Mary sets up an impromptu “bridal suite” in the abandoned house they once threw rocks at:

We see Mary fixing the place up and hanging a pretty toile wallpaper…

…but then we never see that paper again, do we?

Zuzu loves flowers, and her bedroom shows it! Her headboard, nightstand, dresser, and the crib next to her all have flowers on them.

I love this scene, when she refuses to take a nap because she wants to look at the flower she brought home from school. When a few petals falls off, she tells her dad to “paste them back on.”

We only get a glimpse of the kitchen–I always want to see more:

It’s a Wonderful Life began as a short story called “The Greatest Gift,” written by Philip Van Doren Stern. Unable to find a publisher for his story, he made 200 copies and sent them out to family and friends in his Christmas cards in 1943.

Word of the short story spread and RKO Studios bought it for $10,000, intending to turn it into a movie with Cary Grant as the suicidal man who learns how precious his life really is.

Several unsuccessful scripts later, Grant moved on and filmed another holiday favorite, The Bishop’s Wife, instead.

But then Frank Capra read the story and felt it had the potential to “encapsulate everything I was trying to say in all of my films,” as he said in an interview. “That every man is born to do something.”

He bought the script from RKO for the same $10,000 they had paid and changed the title to It’s a Wonderful Life. He later called it his favorite of all his movies.

I must have seen this movie a million times over the years, but I still get teary at the happy ending. Did you know the script originally called for it to end with him on his knees, saying the Lord’s Prayer? They decided to bring the entire town into the final scene instead. Hard to imagine it any other way!

Looking down at the Bailey house from heaven, when the angel Clarence is told that George needs help:

This movie always makes me happy, even after all these years. And it really does make you think about what your life is about and what you can do to make the world around you a better place, doesn’t it?

More Houses from Classic Christmas Movies I’ve Featured:

• Home Alone
• National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
• Christmas in Connecticut
• A Christmas Story
• List of All Movie Houses