13 Dec HOUSES ON FILMS AND TV
Houses on films and TV. How often have you gone to the cinema and have loved the house the characters lived in? Or watching your favourite TV series have you wondered if the house you saw was real? In this new post we will have a look at some marvellous residences that have appeared on the screen both on films and on the TV. Some of them are real mansions, some others are really modest, but all of them have some magic… They are all real, though not all of them are still standing nowadays, but you may get some ideas for your first design…
1. Film: “The Lake House”
The house that gives name to the film was expressly built for the movie in Maple Lake, near Chicago. It is the core of the film; a single-family home that the architect Simon Wyler, the main character’s father (Keanu Reeves) built for his family and where they live Alex (Reeves) and Kate (Sandra Bullock) although in different years. The house was 185 square metres long and stood on some metal pillars within the water. It is entirely made of steel and glass and acts as a look-out over the lake. There is even a tree inside the tree whose branches grown inside the house. I will not write about the plot, but if you like romantic movies, this could be one of your favourites.
2. Film: “Twilight”
If you are a fan of the “Twilight” Saga, you will know this astounding house with its great wooden finishing, an amazing structure and open interiors with glazed walls that allow the forest come into the house. The original name is “Hoke Residence” and it’s located in Portland, Oregon, although everybody knows it as “Cullen House” after the vampire family that lives in it in the movies. It has 446 square metres and design furniture (by Mies, Eames, Le Corbusier…). The rooms communicate without walls, giving lots of space to the house.
3. Film: “Modern Family”
If you have ever seen TV series “Modern Family” I am sure you have stared at the large house Jay, Gloria and Manny live in. It is a building designed by the architects Abramson Teiger and built en 1194 in Pacific Palisades, California. With an approx. size of 576 square metres, it has 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and a beautiful swimming pool surrounding the house. Glazed walls make the inside and the outside interact. Not suitable for all budgets, but I am sure it will give you more than one idea for your home!!
4. TV Series: “Sherlock Holmes”
In the British TV series “Sherlock Holmes”, where Mr Holmes and Dr Watson come back to life in nowadays London, we could see this amazing mansion, that belonged to his nemesis Charles Magnussen, who calls it “Appledore”. High-tech and modern, designed by David Austin, it has 8 bedrooms, bowling lane, squash court, a beautiful winter garden and a high look-out tower.
The house, called “Swinhay House” in real life, is worth more than 30 million pounds and it is located in the Cotswolds, England. Even though you cannot see them, it has ten stories, (some of them underground) and three different wings, around one of which flows a small water channel that ends ups in a lake. The house has all demotic and eco-efficiency systems (geothermic, use of solar energy, good orientation…) Good ideas to consider while designing our house.
5. Film: “The Notebook”
In the romantic movie “The Notebook” there is a house with a special significance. In the story, Noah (Ryan Goslin) and Allie (Rachel McAdams) fall deeply in love during the summer and he tells her that he’ll buy an old abandoned house when he earns enough money and will rebuild it to live there with her. Allie asks him to make it white, with a porch around and blue shutters and that is what he does.
I will not tell you the entire plot in case you haven’t seen it. But I will tell you that this house was in an old plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, and was first built in 1772. After a lot of rebuilt it has come to present like this. An interesting fact is that in the movie they decided to “disguise” it as an abandoned house, instead of making two of them (one for the before and another one for the after Noah’s work). It is typical of Southern architecture of 18th century: milled walls, large columns at the entrance and bay windows.
6. TV Series: “Bones”
If you like modern mid-20th century houses and TV series “Bones” I am sure you’ll like this house. On season 10, where FBI agent Seeley Booth and anthropologist Temperance Brennan fight against crime, the couple moves to a beautiful house in the outskirts of Washington. It is a two-story, very discreet house, with a large ground floor and comfortable decoration. The interior combines both retro-American aesthetics of Booth with the Asian looks of Brennan in wide open spaces, with no walls acting almost as a loft and panoramic windows that form entire walls. Materials such as wood and red brick, both outside and inside, enhance that warmth. We can get lots of good ideas to design our home from this building at an affordable price.
7. Film: “L.A. Confidential”
“Lovell House”, named after its owner physician Philip Lovell, was designed by architect Richard Neutra between 1927 and 1929 in Los Angeles, California. It has used several times in the movie industry, although the most famous of all was as residence of Pierce Morehouse Patchett (David Strathair) in 1997 “L.A. Confidential”.
Being modernist, the house is considered one of the icons of nowadays architecture and it was a turning point in Neutra’s career. It is said that it’s the first house that ever used metallic structure in the USA and it’s a pioneering example of the use of gunite.
8. Film: “Blade Runner”
The last of the houses in today’s post has been used in dozens of musical videos, series and movies like “Twin Peaks” or “Mulholland Drive”, but it will be historically famous for appearing in Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner”. The so called “Ennis-Brown House” is one of the several buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built with “textile blocks”, used by him for about 40 years. In this case, he inspired in Mayan and Aztec temples, using geometrical motives repeatedly to soothe the hardness of concrete.
It was built in 1924 and is located in Happy Hills, Los Angeles, where it has a great view over the city. It was partially destroyed by the 1994 earthquake and it even moved as a consequence of the heavy rains in the zone, being evacuated for some time.
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