In nearly any reality show involving gorgeous singles falling in love, there’s always an equally picturesque backdrop to match them: Too Hot to Handle has its sprawling Caribbean mansion, while Dated & Related takes place in a luxurious villa on the French Riviera. Plus, all these locales come with a couple of key features that aren’t in your typical Zillow listing — a kick-ass an infinity pool, an area for drama-filled challenges and, of course, a massive communal bedroom where hot singletons can, ahem, get it on.
So, how are there enough villas in the world that meet these (very specific) dating show specifications? According to location manager Peta Adderley, there are actually more choices than you’d think.
"People come to me for these kinds of locations," she says. “I have a huge back catalog of villas.”
Below, Adderley, who worked to secure the locations for Too Hot to Handle and Dated & Related, explains how she snags the biggest and best homes in the world to film our favorite dating shows — yes, communal bedroom not-optional.
Before Adderley even whips out her little black book of villas, she first looks at one extenuating factor: the weather. “In reality TV, obviously you need the weather to be amazing,” she says. “It needs to be hot, sunny — you can’t film in rainy seasons.”
So, after production sends her the dates they’d like to shoot, she researches the weather in any given filming country, makes what she calls her “worldwide weather chart” and hands her bosses recommendations of the top five countries to film in. Prior to the search beginning, Adderley also looks into the filming history, infrastructure and visa availability of each country to see if they can support such a massive production, which helps her narrow down her list to a couple of extra-special, select locations.
Then, the fun part begins: Adderley uses tools even we mere mortals have access to — Google and architectural magazines, mostly — to make a dossier of villas so luxurious, they’d make even Jason Oppenheim tear up.
“I’m permanently following in the footsteps of various celebrities who’ve rented out the villas. I’m competing with them,” Adderley says. “Because they are the best villas in the world. They are.”
But not every villa is built equally. The ideal filming location needs to be removed enough that neighbors won’t complain about constant noise yet have enough space to house every single camera, screen and prop. For example, the Dated & Related mansion had a 20-car garage that Adderley says was used as the crew’s command center. Plus, the villa’s owners need to be okay with all of this activity coming into their house.
“Some property owners are like, ‘Absolutely no way. We are not interested in that on any level,’” she says. “And then some people are super excited and would love for us to come in and use the villa. So, it just depends on who the owner of the villa is and how they see it.” Because of this, Adderley says the mansions she uses are typically rentals, not someone’s primary residence.
On the design side, Adderley says it’s also key that a villa have a large pool — especially one that looks out onto a picturesque view — and a massive living room, which they’ll turn into one of those iconic communal bedrooms.
And Adderley says they’re not picky about the style of the villas — she and her team just want something that looks good on-camera and is feasible for the crew. Seasons 2 and 3 of Too Hot to Handle, for instance, were filmed during pandemic restrictions, so production ended up in the Caribbean because the islands weren’t locked down. Therefore, the show’s aesthetic became white sand beaches and clear-blue water (it’s a hard life!). “It’s the countries that dictate the visuals,” she says.
But once production nabs a charming château, filming isn’t exactly a vacation. Production can last up to 13 weeks — seven for prep, four for filming and two for cleanup. During the prep period, production moves out the old furniture, creates a command center and sets up fake walls to run cameras, lighting and cabling behind. In fact, there’s so much equipment that Adderley says usually only about half of the house is used for filming.
“It’s almost like taking a big studio show and putting it into a villa,” she says.
To make the house look like a lover’s paradise, Adderley works with a designer to measure each room and see just how many (trundle) beds or beach chairs will fit. The villas before and after, she says, look “completely different.”
OK, not literally back to the studs. But, after the villa has shut its doors to contestants, Adderley says the team is under a contract to return everything exactly as they found it — down to the last lampshade or lip-shaped landline.
“It’s not an experience that [the location owners] go through every day. Not many people are used to going on and off film sets,” she explains. “My job is to find the villas in the first place but also spend the time with the owners to gain that sense of trust that everything will go back to exactly the way we found it."
And when the time comes to film another season of a show, Adderley says it’s up to the producersshowrunner to decide if that same villa will be used again — or if the cast will jet off to some new romantic corner of the world to fall in love.
“In the same way that you change the cast, it’s an editorial choice to put different visuals on screen,” she says. “The location becomes such a part of the show.”
