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

My sister-in-law Shelley was the first person who told me about The Help when Kathryn Stockett’s novel came out a few years ago. She gave me her copy and promised that I’d love it. She was right. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down. And when I heard they were making a movie out of it, I couldn’t wait to see it.

I thought they did a great job adapting it for the big screen. The ’60s-era sets were fun to look at, too. There were four main houses that “the help” worked at in the movie, so let’s take a look at them, starting with Skeeter’s classic antebellum mansion.

Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan’s Antebellum Mansion

The Help is the story of two women, Minny and Aibileen, who have spent their lives taking care of privileged white families in Jackson, Mississippi. “Skeeter” Phelan is an Ole Miss grad who’s expected to settle down and get married, but she’d rather be a writer. She decides to interview them and write a book about their experiences.

The novel by Kathryn Stockett came out in 2009 and stayed on the bestseller lists more than 100 weeks. Before she found a publisher, though, her manuscript was rejected by 60 literary agents who declined to represent her. Bet the ones who passed on it are kicking themselves now.

Although the book and movie have both gotten great reviews–and the movie garnered several Oscar noms, including Best Picture–they have also had their share of controversy. Not everyone loved it. For example, Ida E. Jones, the national director of the Association of Black Women Historians, wrote an open letter stating that “The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers.”

Stockett says it was based on her childhood experiences growing up in Jackson and her close relationship with her own nanny, Demetrie.

Production designer Mark Ricker and Set Decorator Rena DeAngelo had 47 sets to create for the film. They scoured flea markets, antique stores, and even some old attics to find enough period-appropriate objects to fill the scenes with. They did an amazing job pulling them all together.

The movie was filmed on location in Jackson, Clarksdale, and Greenwood, Mississippi. Ricker says the Phelan home was “lighter in tone and a bit newer in decoration choices as Charlotte (Skeeter’s mother) would have layered her own choices with the history of the house.”

Some of my favorite sets in the movie were the kitchens because you get a glimpse of their everyday lives in them.

Emma Stone plays Skeeter, whose crazy curly hair is the bane of her existence. Allison Janney plays her mother and makes her a bit more sympathetic than she was in the novel (at least for me).

One thing I didn’t like about the movie version was the change made to the story about Skeeter’s beloved maid Constantine, and why she left.

An aerial view of the property:

Elizabeth Leefolt’s Brick Ranch

Skeeter’s longtime friend Elizabeth lives in a more modern house in town.

Aibileen (Viola Davis) takes care of Elizabeth’s daughter Mae Mobly, who is pretty much ignored by her mother.

Ricker says that the rooms in Elizabeth’s middle-class ranch were designed to be “bland and uneventful.”

Elizabeth’s decor was inspired by Better Homes and Gardens decorating books from the era. I own one of them from 1956, and it does look like the photos from it, come to life!

Hilly Holbrook’s Traditional Colonial

Bryce Dallas Howard fearlessly played the horrible Hilly Holbrook. One of the funniest scenes is when Skeeter gets back at her by “misstyping” the newsletter to tell people to drop off their “old commodes” instead of their old coats at Hilly’s house.

Ricker says that Hilly’s house style was the “first phase of the new South,” and the interiors are “prim, perfect, pastel and icy”–like her.

My parents-in-law have these same chairs in their kitchen (below). Fun to see them pop up in Hilly’s breakfast room!

Bathrooms play a big role in this story. Hilly doesn’t want the help using hers and goes to extremes to make sure none of them do.

Celia Foote’s Plantation House

Celia lives on the outskirts of town with her new husband Johnny in the old plantation house that belonged to his family.

To say the house doesn’t suit her would be an understatement. She says she dreams of filling it with wall-to-wall white carpet and making everything more modern.

The stuffed bear in the story made me laugh–especially when Minny had to figure out how to clean it.

It came from a taxidermy shop in Wisconsin.

Mark Ricker says, “Celia’s house was a ton of work because we did everything in it. All wallpaper, complete reconstruction of the kitchen, building all the curtains, and the sheer amount of layering in the house. We wanted it to have the most ‘history,’ so we just kept buying and buying…”

The kitchen is really old-fashioned, and Celia doesn’t feel very at home in it (she doesn’t know how to make much more than corn pone), but I love it. So charming.

Octavia Spencer won an Oscar for her role as Minny Jackson.

Mark Ricker says he also looked to the classic Southern movie Gone with the Wind for inspiration when he took this project on.

Minny teaches Celia how to cook for her husband Johnny, who hasn’t been told that she hired help around the house:

The movie ends with Aibileen (Viola Davis) walking down the street, away from the Leefolt house, and saying she has raised her last baby. She’s going to be a writer now. It’s hard not to cheer for her.

If you loved the movie and the sets, you can read more about them at Atlanta Homes, Cinema Style, and Vignette Design. Photos via DreamWorks Pictures.

Hooked on Movie Houses?

• Gone with the Wind
• The Blind Side
• Secretariat
• Search for your favorite!

One of the most searched-for movie houses on my blog is the Spanish hacienda-style ranch that Meryl Streep owned in the romantic comedy It’s Complicated. Who could forget that tile roof, the wide veranda, the beamed and vaulted ceiling in the living room, or the sumptuous kitchen? I couldn’t!

So I was pretty excited to hear that the real house where the movie was filmed is now on the market for $12 million. Okay, so it may be over $11 million too much for most of us, but at least we can look, right?

The Nancy Meyers film co-starred Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as the men competing for Meryl Streep’s heart. Here’s a shot of her standing in front of the house in the movie:

It was posing as a house in Santa Barbara in the movie, but the property is actually about an hour south of there, on an equestrian ranch with over 56 acres in Hidden Valley.

Here’s how the front of the house looks in the listing today:

Iamnotastalker tracked the property down in person a couple of years ago. She wrote on her blog:

“Throughout the movie, Jane’s house is shown to be surrounded by a long, white wooden fence. That type of fence pops up quite often in film and television productions and when it does, it is pretty much a dead giveaway that filming took place somewhere on Potrero Road.

“So, I decided to begin my search there. And sure enough, about ten minutes into the hunt, I located Jane’s house! As it turns out, it is situated less than half a mile east of JMJ Ranch, which was featured in Win A Date With Tad Hamilton and the more recent Back-Up Plan with Jennifer Lopez.”

Interesting! You can see her post about it here.

The interior scenes were shot on a soundstage in Brooklyn. Here’s how the movie version of the living room looked (via Elle Decor):

The real one has a similar vibe with beamed ceilings and a window seat:

The real house is larger than the movie version appears to be. It has over 6,000 square feet. Unlike the movie house, which just has an open area between the kitchen and living room with a dining table in it…

…the real house has a proper dining room down the hall:

Meryl’s bedroom in the movie was a bit smaller than the real thing, too:

The real deal:

No freestanding tub in the real master like there was in the movie:

Another one of the 5 bedrooms in the listing:

I kinda feel sorry for the kitchen in the real house, which is perfectly nice but couldn’t stand a chance of competing with the famous film version that Meryl Streep cooked in:

Here’s how it looks in the listing:

The house was built in early 1900s and has reportedly belonged to several celebrities over the years, including W.C. Fields.

In the movie we see a hallway lined with windows that overlook the courtyard:

And the real house has one, too:

I especially love this cozy little sunroom:

Not to mention the built-in dining area on the veranda, which is where I’d want to have all of my meals (cooked by Streep’s culinary character Jane, please):

The amazing cutting garden from the movie isn’t shown in the listing…

…but there is a lovely pool and poolhouse that are:

Another thing we didn’t see in the movie: the front gates that guard the long private drive to the house:

For more photos and information, check the listing by Nicki & Karen. Thanks to Luciane at Homebunch for the scoop! Joni wrote a great post about the real house when it was on the market the last time with photos of how it looked then that you can see at Cote de Texas.

Want to see more photos of how the house looked in the movie? Check out my original post about the sets (including Streep’s to-die-for bakery) in It’s Complicated.

Writer and Director Nancy Meyers has built a reputation for movies that feature houses we’d love to live in. Thanks to her, we also have these other great movie houses to drool over–all of which I’ve featured and are among my personal favorites:

• Father of the Bride
• Baby Boom
• Something’s Gotta Give
• The Parent Trap
• The Holiday

Do you have a favorite Nancy Meyers movie house? I don’t think I could choose. I’ll just take one for every day of the week, if that’s okay…

If you’re not watching The Good Wife, then you’re missing out on one of the best dramas on TV. Seriously. I was kind of put off by the premise because I don’t really go for the “ripped from the headlines” types of shows. But I got so many requests to see the Florrick family’s apartment in Chicago that I finally started watching…and got totally hooked.

The sets are great, too. So, as I promised when I posted photos of Alicia’s former home, which she revisited in a recent episode, we’re taking a closer look at her apartment.

The apartment scenes are filmed on a 3,000 square-foot set in Brooklyn.

Julianna Marguiles plays Alicia, a politician’s wife whose life is changed by her husband’s sex scandal. After spending years as a stay-at-home mom, she goes back to work as an attorney to pay the bills and discovers that she’s really good at it.

“Designer Dad” Stephen Saint-Onge had the opportunity to visit the set in person and he wrote a great post about it, filled with behind-the-scenes photos and details that you can see on his blog. That’s where I found some of these fabulous set photos. Thanks, Stephen!

The Set Decorator for the series is the talented Beth Kushnick. Her work on the show is so popular that the sets have their own Twitter account (which I follow!):  @GoodWifeSetDec. She also writes a blog for CBS.com that gives inside looks into the weekly set design.

Gotta love all the built-in bookcases the apartment has!

The Dining Room:

The show airs on Sunday nights on CBS.

The Director of Photography Fred Murphy said, “In a way, it’s filmed more like an old movie than a CSI type of TV show. A classic kind of movie. Kind of 1940s.” That could be why I like it so much!

Alicia’s Bedroom:

The code words for the sets were “simplicity and elegance,” and it shows.

The Kitchen:

Chris Noth plays Alicia’s ex-husband Peter Florrick, whose misdeeds while in office put him out of a job and into a prison cell. If I have any complaints about the show, it’s that he’s not in enough of the episodes!

Another great character is Eli Gold, played by the brilliant Alan Cumming. (Jane Austen lovers still remember him as Mr. Elton in the 1996 “Gwyneth version” of Emma.)

Another reason to watch–if you’re a Gilmore Girls fan like I am, anyway–is to see Rory’s old boyfriend Logan. Matt Czuchry plays Cary Agos on The Good Wife and is one of my favorite characters. Almost makes me wish Rory ended up with him…

For More Photos and Information About the Sets:

• Stephen Saint-Onge Visits the Good Wife Sets
• Set Decorator Beth Kushnick’s Blog at CBS.com
• A Q&A with Set Decorator Beth Kushnick

P.S. On a recent episode, Alicia revisited the beautiful home they lost after her husband’s scandal and contemplated buying it back again. You can see photos of it here.

See More Sets from TV Shows:

• Revenge
• Pretty Little Liars
• Gilmore Girls
• Cougar Town
• Smash
• Hot in Cleveland
• All of ‘em!

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!

Did you see last night’s episode of the Julianna Margulies drama The Good Wife? I love that show–and her apartment on it, which I promise to feature soon. But in this episode, called “Long Way Home,” Alicia’s real estate agent tells her that the house they lost in the midst of her husband Peter’s scandal is back on the market. She goes to see it during an Open House, so we get a glimpse of what her life used to be like.

Not only was it moving to watch her revisiting her past, but I loved the house and had to get some photos of it to show you.

She checks to see if the glass doorknob still falls off the door to the bedroom, and it does:

Chris Noth plays her ex-husband Peter Florrick, whose bad behavior with prostitutes while in office cost him his job, their marriage, and this house. I like Noth so much, though, that it’s hard not to like his character anyway! Maybe I watched too many episodes of Sex and the City (he was “Mr. Big”).

Would have loved to have seen more of the kitchen. We just get this glimpse:

Did anyone else tear up when she looked inside the pantry and found her family’s growth chart still penciled on the wall?

I could see why her kids Grace and Zach were hoping she’d buy the house back. I was, too! I doubt the writers will take her there, though.

You can watch the episode on CBS.com if you missed it (the scene with the Open House is at the end). I’ll be featuring Alicia’s apartment on the show soon, too.

Have you ever had a chance to revisit one of your old houses? I check for mine at least once a month online just in case one of them might come back on the market!

On Mondays I Feature Houses from Movies and TV Shows:

• Sex and the City
• Smash
• Revenge
• See ‘em all!

The popular TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland is about three women–played by Jane Leeves, Wendie Malick, and Valerie Bertinelli– who relocate from L.A., moving into a charming old farmhouse in Ohio. The rent is crazy low to the California natives, but the house comes with a “catch”–Betty White is the crotchety caretaker. (She tells them she cooks breakfast and gives advice, “Like Drama on Entourage.”)

That’s a real house in Cleveland that appears at the beginning of most of the episodes:

When the show first came out, I immediately thought of the 30 Rock episode when Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon is thrilled to discover that in Ohio, she’s mistaken for a model because she’s “too thin.” She tells Jack that she wants to move there and he says, “Oh, Liz, we’d all like to flee to the Cleve!”

The sitcom’s creator Suzanne Martin wanted a big, Victorian-era porch where the women could gather: “It is the antithesis of what our characters knew from their life in Los Angeles, a symbol of the slower, more gracious lifestyle that our characters discover in Ohio,” production designer Michael Hynes told the L.A. Times.

“I suggested a porch swing in addition to chairs, because the swing is the ultimate throwback to a Norman Rockwell-like past that we all get nostalgic for,” Hynes said.

Here’s how the living room looked in the pilot when they first saw the house and it was empty:

The furniture and fabrics were pretty basic during the first season, sometimes changing from episode to episode. There was a leather chair here in one, for instance:

Then it disappeared and a pale green velvet armchair took its place as the sets slowly evolved and became more feminine:

During the first season there was also a dining area in the living room that you can see behind Wendie Malick:

By the second season, the walls were less green, more blue.  A large window had appeared to the right of the front door, and the green velvet chair was replaced by a red one:

Production Designer Michael Hynes explained, “The (second-season) mandate was to update the interiors as a nod to all of their tastes, while staying mindful of the fact that they are in Cleveland, not Hollywood.”

Set Decorator Maralee Zediker added that the more feminine furnishings were meant to reflect “women who want to celebrate their new life in a traditional city, but whose ideas about style have been shaped by a half a lifetime spent in a very design- and trend-conscious metropolis.”

The dining room became its own separate room in Season 2:

The kitchen may be my favorite set in the house, and it has changed the least. Here’s how it looked in the pilot episode:

The floor looks like old linoleum but is actually a pattern painted onto the studio’s concrete floor.

Hynes told the L.A. Times about the backstory they were working with for the farmhouse kitchen:

“The Victorian-era original had been updated with new appliances including an enameled Magic Chef oven in the 1930s, and then it got its Dishmaster sink faucet and a GE combination icebox in the 1950s.”

Just a few changes from the first season to the second. For example, the framed poster above the butcher block was replaced by plates, and there’s a new wall hanging in the stairwell (above Valerie Bertinelli’s head).

Have you seen the show? I watched most of the first and second seasons while taking screenshots for this post and it was better than I expected.

It’s fun to see all the guest stars who pop up on the show, like Carl Reiner as a love interest for Betty White’s Elka, and Bonnie Franklin as Melanie’s potential mother-in-law (she played Bertinelli’s mom on One Day at a Time.)

My favorite guest star, though, had to be Mary Tyler Moore, who turned up as Betty White’s prison mate. She drew a big “M” on the wall of their cell, and when Elka asked what it stood for, she growled, “Murder.”

You can catch the show on TV Land on Wednesday nights. Netflix is streaming most of the episodes right now, too, if you missed any from the first two seasons!

Read the L.A. Times article by David A. Keeps for more information about the sets. Photos via TV Land.

Hooked on Sitcom Sets?

• The Mary Tyler Moore Show
• Cougar Town
• Modern Family
• Mad About You
• See ‘em all!

Who could forget the charming Italian villa called Bramasole that Diane Lane buys on a whim and fixes up in the movie Under the Tuscan Sun? I wrote a post about it a couple of years ago and discovered that it was filmed on location in Tuscany in a villa that they didn’t actually remodel for the shoot–they “just cleaned it up a little and filmed it in warmer, prettier light,” according to writer-director Audrey Wells.

The real restoration work on the real-life Bramasole began in 2006, four years after the movie was filmed here. Here’s how it looks today.

There are actually two buildings on the property.

This is the one Diane Lane’s Frances Mayes sees in the movie when she visits for the first time (for those of you who don’t know, it was based on a true story, but this is not her actual villa):

When she walks in, things are in pretty bad shape:

At the end of the movie, when the renovations are complete (supposedly, thanks to Movie Magic), it looks like this:

The real-life restoration work was much more extensive and involved more than just cleaning up. Here’s how it looks now:

You can rent the villa the next time you’re in Tuscany. According to Italian Villas, “Bramasole lies nestled on a hill just three minutes outside the ancient town walls of Cortona.”

The kitchen in the movie was much smaller:

According to the rental website, “Every bedroom on the property is unique with beautiful original features, hand woven Busatti fabrics and the highest quality bed linen. All bedrooms rooms have air conditioning, Wi-Fi, en-suite bathrooms and its own view of the surrounding countryside.”

A bedroom in the movie:

There’s plenty of room for everyone here, with 10 bedrooms and 10.5 baths.

Again, the bathroom in the movie was much more basic than they are now!

One of the updated baths:

The views from the villa are beautiful:

“There is always something to keep you entertained, whether it be a swim in the travertine pool, a soak in the Jacuzzi, a walk through the Medici parkland to visit the ducks on the lake, or a Bocce tournament with other guests.” Sounds like the perfect vacation to me!

For more photos and information about renting this movie location, visit Italian Villas. (Thanks to Betty for telling me about it!)

A reader took this photo of Frances Mayes’ actual Bramasole (her real house, not the movie version) while she was on vacation in the area and sent it to me–thanks, Joanie! You can see my original post about the movie with more pics and info here: Under the Tuscan Sun.

P.S. Did you watch the Oscars last night? I never miss it! If you think you know your famous movie houses, see how well you do on this quiz:

Can You Name the 10 Oscar-Nominated  Films These Houses Starred In?

Visit my Movie Houses page to see more, including:

• Secretariat
• Must Love Dogs
• Nights in Rodanthe

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!

After the relentless hype about the new TV show Smash on NBC, I tuned in expecting to see some singing and dancing (it’s about the making of a Broadway musical). What surprised me was how great all the sets were. I especially liked the glimpses we got of Julia’s (Debra Messing’s) townhouse, but Tom and Derek’s places weren’t too shabby, either.

Several of you wrote and asked to see photos of them (great minds think alike!), so I rounded up what I could from the pilot episode. Sets often change as the first season of a show progresses, but here’s how they look right now…

Julia’s Townhouse:

Love how these stairs lead into the kitchen:

Derek’s Place:

Jack Davenport plays Derek Wills, the not-so-nice director hired for “Marilyn: The Musical.” He’ll always be Steve Taylor from the hilarious British sitcom Coupling to me, though.

Katharine McPhee plays a young actress who auditions her best “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” for Derek. Personally, I don’t see her as Marilyn at all, but we’ll see if she can pull it off in weeks to come!

Tom’s Apartment:

Christian Borle plays Tom, Debra Messing’s writing partner.

If anyone has any info on the filming locations, fill us in!

The Production Designer for the show is Cabot McMullen, who is also credited for working on another one of my favorites–Cougar Town (I’m so excited they’re bringing it back this week–you can see my post about those sets here).

They work on the musical around his piano in his apartment.

I’ll be watching Smash to see more of these apartments–and to follow the drama. Will you? What do you think of the show so far? You can still watch the first episode online at NBC.com if you missed it, and the second episode airs tonight.

More Sets Seen on TV:

• Pretty Little Liars
• Parenthood
• Revenge
• See ‘em all!