Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Early on in Netflix’s Locke & Key, Nina Locke (Darby Stanchfield) is driving her family to their new home of Matheson, Massachusetts. As the family bickers and jokes (as families are wont to do), they’re all stunned to silence once they drive up a majestic shore, and we, the viewers, get to see the gorgeous small town of Matheson. Only, of course it’s not actually Matheson, or Massachusetts at all: it’s Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
In the comic books by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, the main town is called Lovecraft, perhaps further adding to any confusion from fans. That was changed early in the process due to some recent reevaluation of author H.P. Lovecraft, to Matheson, inspired by horror writer Richard Matheson. And though an earlier version of the show filmed other locations filling in for the main town and its environs — a Fox pilot filmed in 2010 and 2011 was shot throughout Pennsylvania, mostly in Pittsburgh — Lunenburg has been the main stand-in for Matheson since the scrapped, 2017 Hulu pilot.
Particularly given the Netflix series’ focus on the more storybook aspects of Locke & Key, versus the comic’s semi-frequent use of blood and gore, you can see why they went for the colorful, colonial town. Located South of Halifax in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia (and about a 12 hour drive from central Massachusetts), Lunenburg is a UNESCO World Heritage site, with most of the buildings preserved in the same state they were in from the 18th and 19th centuries. That’s thanks to a decision by UNESCO in 1995 stating that Lunenburg showed off one of the best examples of what British colonialism looked like, in the modern day. Sadly, they didn’t say anything about a house full of magical keys, but we’ll assume that was implied.
Here’s a little video tour from the Nova Scotia tourism board, if you don’t believe me, complete with a delicious looking lobster:
Perhaps more shocking than the quaint port town is that other exteriors, particularly the ominous Drowning Caves that play a big role in the series as it continues, were also filmed in Lunenburg. Stanchfield even posted a stunning video of the location on her Instagram, back in June of 2019, saying, “Favorite shooting location of the season.”
Lunenburg wasn’t the only location where Locke & Key shot… The series completed principal photography between February and July of last year, with exteriors including Lunenburg, and Toronto — as well as stage shoots at Toronto’s Cinespace Film Studios.
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Keyhouse itself, the main location for the series — a house filled with the aforementioned magical keys — is mostly CGI, though the interiors were built on soundstages. Decider discussed the process with director Michael Morris, who noted that, “We had to get the entire ground floor of the house ready on the same day, which was a massive challenge for production.” And then of course there are entirely staged sequences like the Mirror Key sequence from the first episode, “Welcome to Matheson” — though even those were shot with sparing CGI, in deference to capturing a good portion of the sequence in camera.
The locations have stayed constant throughout the three seasons of Locke & Key, which just finished its run on Netflix. The good news? Even if the doors have closed to Keyhouse, the town of Lunenburg is still around. Maybe if you visit, you can unlock some magic of your own.
This article has been updated to reflect the end of Locke & Key.
