Where Was ‘Gilmore Girls’ Filmed? Is Stars Hollow Real?

Centered around the quick-witted, 30-something Lorelai Gilmore, and her intelligent yet messy daughter Rory, Gilmore Girls follows the mother-daughter duo as they experience all the ups, downs, and in-betweens of life. The WB/CW series will have you both laughing and crying, with its seven seasons full of hilarious dialogue and heartwarming moments.

 
This all takes place within the small town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut — where the Gilmores share chats over coffee at Luke’s Diner, eat uncomfortable meals at the grandparents’ house, and catch up at the Dragonfly Inn.

If watching the adorable bustling town on your screen makes you want to book a trip to Stars Hollow yourself, you’re not alone. Read on to find out if Stars Hollow, CT is real, and where Gilmore Girls was filmed.

Where was Gilmore Girls filmed?

Unfortunately, Stars Hollow is not a real town. In fact, from the autumn leaves to the cozy homes, almost nothing in Stars Hollow exists in real life. Rather than a small town on the east coast, Gilmore Girls was filmed in Burbank, California on the Warner Bros. studio lot. Outdoor scenes of the series were filmed on the backlot “Midwest Street,” and production designers created facades of the iconic diners, shops, and hangouts we know and love from the series. They topped the set off with a big gazebo in the center and hired hundreds of extras to bring Stars Hollow to life.

As you may know, Gilmore Girls shows off the changing leaves and hefty snowfall of every East Coast season. But how did they create the illusion of changing seasons in sunny California? As Warner Brother’s tour guide Amanda Yslas reports, stagehands frequently scattered autumn leaves around set in the “fall,” and in the “winter,” they made fake snow out of delicious mashed potatoes! 

While Stars Hollow itself may not be real, the town was inspired by the city of Washington, Connecticut. Show creator Amy Sherman-Paladino told Deseret News about her visit to the town while driving to New York with her husband, their stay at the Mayflower Inn, and how it became instrumental in the creation of Gilmore Girls.

“At the time I was there, it was beautiful, it was magical, and it was a feeling of warmth and small-town camaraderie,” said Sherman-Paladino. “There was a longing for that in my own life, and I thought — that’s something that I would really love to put out there.”

On the rare occasion that filming took place outside the Warner Bros. studio lot, there are a few California locations you actually can visit to walk on the same grounds as Lorelai and Rory. When the two take a trip to Harvard University, they’re actually roaming the campus of UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). And when Rory goes off to college at Yale University, the University of Southern California campus was actually used. As for the Chilton Preparatory School, The Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills was used to shoot any scenes set there.