Whether it’s the spartan Brooklyn apartment of Ralph and Alice Kramden or the unrealistically large New York City apartment where Monica of “Friends” resides, where a TV character lives says a lot about that person. In fact, sometimes the house is as well loved as the show.

001 Cemetery Lane, “The Addams Family”

Their house was a museum, where people came to see ‘um. The Addams family mansion at 001 Cemetery Lane was filled with instruments of torture and landscaped with hemlock and poison ivy.

The house was said to be inspired by creator Charles Addams’ real-life boyhood home in Westfield, NJ.

The TV series house was originally an LA house on Adams Boulevard, that had been doctored by the set designer.

To create the matte painting, the artist took the photograph of the original house on Adams Boulevard and had it enlarged to a thirty-by-forty inch black-and-white portrait. The photograph was then custom painted with various shades of colored oils. Details such as the bent television antenna on the mansion’s tower and the leafless trees flanking the house were added for mood.

“The Beverly Hillbillies” mansion
Zillow.com estimates that the 1938 building located at 750 Bel Air Road in Bel Air, is worth $19,944,500. But that was just the exterior of the mansion where Jed, Granny, Jethro and Elly Mae lived. The rest of the house was constructed on the studio lot, including the swimming pool, or cee-ment pond, where Elly Mae used to swim.

Mary Richards’ apartment, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”

Rhoda had dibs on it, but Phyllis gave Apartment D at 119 N. Weatherly to her friend Mary Richards. Mary’s studio apartment with its sunken living room, pass-through kitchen and large window became an icon for women as did the character who lived there. Every single gal on her own, or little girls aspiring to be single gals, wanted to live in a place just like Mary’s, with her own giant initial tacked on to the wall.

The house used for the exterior is still there, In Minneapolis where the show is set. Late in the show’s run, the producers decided it was time to move Mary into an apartment with a separate bedroom, a decision made in part by the behavior of the owner of the house at 2104 Kenwood Parkway. It seems the owner had gotten so sick of the cameras and the curious crowds the house drew that she strung up an “Impeach Nixon” sign outside to prevent filming.

Southfork, “Dallas”

The sprawling ranch where JR Ewing schemed his way into our hearts was, according to the show, founded in 1840 and? built by Miss Ellie’s grandfather, Enoch Southworth. In reality, the Ewing homestead was a built by another JR in 1970. The ranch house was chosen because it looked good from every angle and was deemed big enough at 8,500-square-feet to house an oil tycoon and his extended family.

The interior scenes were California soundstages, but the cast and crew went out to the ranch near Plano, Texas for about three months each year to film exterior shots. Almost as soon as “Dallas” aired in 1978, Southfork attracted tourists. The owner at the time, Joe R Duncan, took advantage of the house’s fame by selling off bits of the ranch land for $25 a square foot. Duncan eventually sold the house, but he kept 124 acres of the ranch, from there he sells t-shirts and other Ewing memorabilia. The house itself is now a conference center that’s open daily for tours.

1313 Mockingbird Lane, “The Munsters”

The house where Lily and Herman Munster lived had a revolving suit of armor leading to a secret room, a trapdoor in the staircase and a basement laboratory where Grandpa mixed his potions.

The real-life house is actually a shell built on Colonial Street in Universal Studios, right across from the house where Beaver Cleaver of “Leave it to Beaver” fame lived. Universal transformed the house, originally built for motion pictures in 1940, by building a big stone gate in front of it. A stovepipe and weathervane were installed on the roof, and the house was landscaped with hanging moss, tumbleweeds, dead bushes, and strewn leaves.

But the house lived on, even after the show died. Most recently Colonial Street has become the setting for Wisteria Lane of “Desperate Housewives” fame. And the Munster’s house was remodeled and draped with wisteria to welcome Oprah Winfrey.

Wayne Manor, “Batman”

Stately Wayne Manor, ancestral home to Batman’s alter ego Bruce Wayne, was located on extensive grounds outside Gotham City. The vast mansion was kept in shape by Wayne’s butler, Alfred, who had no other help to dust the bric a brac. But the real attraction was the Batcave, Batman’s HQ. Access to the Batcave from the house was through Wayne’s den by pressing a switch hidden in a bust of William Shakespeare. A bookshelf would appear, then disappear to reveal twin fire poles that took Batman and Robin under the house.

The Batcave was built in a studio. But the exterior was located on five acres on South San Rafael Avenue in Pasadena. Unfortunately the 16,000 square foot Tudor mansion was destroyed by fire in 2005.

4222 Clinton Way, “The Brady Bunch”

The interior of the Brady house, with its open staircase and groovy 60s color scheme, wouldn’t actually fit into the San Fernando home used for the exterior. Built in 1959, it’s actually a split-level and not the spacious two-story structure viewers see. To give the effect of a full second floor, a fake window was attached to the house’s A-frame section before filming.

The house was chosen because it looked so normal.

It was the house’s middle-class appearance that attracted the show’s producers when they came around asking to make it the residence of Mike and Carol Brady, their six kids and Alice the housekeeper, recalled Carson’s son, Guy Weddington McCreary.
“It just had a good look to it,” he said. “It symbolized California living.”
Series creator Sherwood Schwartz agrees.
“We didn’t want it to be too affluent, we didn’t want it to be too blue-collar,” he said. “We wanted it to look like it would fit a place an architect would live.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 4:27 am and is filed under Mixed Bag. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.