Iconic houses from movie history
- 'A Christmas Story, 'Steel Magnolias' and 'The Blind Side' filmed here
Forget about keeping tabs on what your starlets are wearing on the red carpet — today's moviegoers are far more engaged in an online discourse regarding the interior designs and architectural landscapes that serve as the homes in some of their favorite films. Here are three well-known homes that are indelibly etched in the minds of many moviegoers:
A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983)
Location: Tremont neighborhood, Cleveland
Real-life role: Museum
Like its elder holiday companion, It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story wasn't a commercial box office hit upon its initial release in November 1983. A decade later, the Turner Broadcasting System began running it multiple times between Thanksgiving and Christmas and eventually a holiday classic was born.
However, a Hollywood screenwriter couldn't have imagined what would transpire next. The current owner of the home, retired naval officer Brian Jones, stumbled into a career as owner and curator of A Christmas Story House & Museum.
In 2003, Jones' parents bought him a replica of the garish leg lamp that Ralphie's father receives in the movie. Jones so enjoyed the novelty gift that he began manufacturing and selling replicas with great success.
And in 2005, Jones' wife told him the Cleveland home, featured in the film, was up for sale on eBay. Jones immediately saw the opportunity to create a business that would serve to honor a film that he, his family and thousands of other movie fans have come to love.
In the movie, Ralphie's childhood adventures and antics are played out against the backdrop theme of family in this semi-fictional comedy based on the writings of the late raconteur Jean Shepherd.
The movie was filmed in Cleveland, which served to mirror Shepherd's upbringing in Indiana. Set decorator Mark S. Freeborn says very little was actually shot in the home because its interior was quite small. So the interior scenes were shot on a soundstage in Toronto.
"Bob [Clarke] and I were more or less the same age," says Freeborn, recalling his conversations with the director on how the family's home should look and feel. "So we had more or less the same memories. For us it was post-war, rather than pre-war. And conversely the universe didn't change all that much because of the war, so we had a pretty good idea of what it should feel like."
Furnishings were sourced through Cleveland antique dealers, as Freeborn imagined that some of the furniture in the home, which "Mother" kept so well for her family, might have come from her and the "Old Man's" parents or grandparents, providing "a little touch of heritage," he says.
STEEL MAGNOLIAS (1989)
Location: Natchitoches, La.
Real-life role: Bed-and-breakfast
This historic northern Louisiana home, built in the late 1830s by two Italian architects, is believed to have been a safe haven for slaves traveling the Underground Railroad and later used as a hospital for Northern troops during the Civil War, according to oral historians.
But today, most visitors recognize it as the eponymous home where the fictional Eatenton family lived in the movie, Steel Magnolias, written by Natchitoches native Robert Harling. The movie, based on Harling's stage play, recalls the death of his sister and the relationships among six women who regularly gather at the local beauty parlor where they discuss the trials and tribulations of their lives. Much of the movie was filmed in the home and the gardens.
The home, more than 170 years old, has seen many upgrades and remodeling to its interior and exterior foundation. Interestingly, however, the private residence has only changed ownership five times since it was built.
Jackson L. Bryan, a banker, brought electricity into the home, but retained four original oil lamp chandeliers that had been installed in the 1840s. Other architectural chestnuts include the front door, which was once part of a Spanish cathedral and is more than 175 years old. The walls of the home are five to seven bricks deep, and it is believed that they were constructed on the property by slaves; the five columns on the front porch, which hoist the second floor, are made of solid, pre-shaped bricks, says current owner Christina Landry, who has conducted a considerable amount of research–reading through local archives–on the property, far beyond the oral history that has been handed down from owner to owner.
In 2003, Landry says the home was purchased and turned it into a bed and breakfast. Three years later, Landry bought the property with the intention of returning it to a private residence. But nostalgia and visitors' love of the property quickly changed her mind. So she read The Idiot's Guide to Running a Bed and Breakfast, and decided to keep the property as a B&B.
"People that come to the house are really, really nice. It's just been a wonderful experience," says Landry. But her experience is coming to an end as she and her husband recently put the B&B—where they also reside—up for sale. The couple plans to move to southern Louisiana to be closer to their children and grandchildren.
THE BLIND SIDE (2009)
Location: Buckhead neighborhood, Atlanta
Real-life role: Residential home
In an Atlanta neighborhood, a Southern home headed by a tough-as-nails matriarch is the setting for The Blind Side, a semi-biographical film about a young man estranged from his drug- addicted mother who's circulated through a revolving door of foster homes and suddenly finds himself embraced by an unlikely family.
Michael Oher, the movie's protagonist, is a 300-plus-pound 17-year-old who grew up impoverished and alone. The young man lacked a sense of connection to family and friends, and set decorator Susan Benjamin says that she thought it was important to show extreme visual contrasts, on screen, between his life and world and that of the Tuohy family who took him in.
"I wanted to create a feeling so that when Michael walks in (to the Tuohy home) for the first time, to him it looked like a palace. So it's amplified," says Benjamin. "The fabrics that we chose were bright and warm and welcoming, but also (intended to feel) used to be intimidating to Michael, as well.''
Benjamin spent two days with the real Leigh Anne Tuohy at her home in Memphis, noting that her home decorating style mixes "a lot of white, beige and cream."
The movie audience is introduced to the family's home early in the movie. However, the long driveway leading up to it, with its French influences, reflective of a châteaux, is actually the exterior of a different residence located in the same Atlanta neighborhood, which the movie's production designer felt "harmonized better" with the planned interior décor that Benjamin designed.
Lorri and Forrest McClain are the homeowners who allowed the Hollywood studio to take over their home for six weeks to shoot the interior scenes of the replicated Tuohy home.
When a location scout knocked on her door with the offer to have her home serve as the set of a movie, McClain was "adamant" that she didn't want to do it. "I was flattered, but I said I don't think so." She called her husband and told him about the offer, to which he responded: "That's the book I just finished reading." And that pretty much sealed the deal.
As part of the agreement, they allowed the production and design team to repaint the interior, as well as remove all furniture and draperies, but make no structural changes to the home—along with the standard contractual stipulation that "everything be put back the same or better than it was found."
The studio rented a home for the McClains and their two children while shooting took place.
"None of us had any desire to be in the movie," says McClain, but her husband was generally curious about how a movie is shot and spent just about every day on set watching the process.
This article was excerpted from USA TODAY's Home magazine, available now on newsstands or through USA TODAY's online store. The special magazine features articles on home improvement, décor and entertaining.