“There is a whole world in this house and garden. “The house itself has a certain magic to it,” Standefer says. It was as if we were both novelists.”Ī reader designed this kitchen (below) inspired by the one in Practical Magic:Īlesch and Standefer decorated the sets with treasures they found through architectural salvage.ĭouble Doors Lead from the Kitchen to the Greenhouse: “When I visited the stage set for Practical Magic in Los Angeles, I realized that the set designers had created a complete physical world out of their imagination, just as I had. The author of the novel Alice Hoffman said: The whole house was pretty fabulous, but the kitchen may be the most memorable. “This is the place where they do their work it’s where they place the cauldron.” “The Aga is almost like a shrine,” production designer Robin Standefer said of the range in the kitchen. They planned an exorcism of sorts in the parlor. The stairs go up from the attic to the lighthouse-like tower. Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock played sisters Sally and Gillian Owens.īoth actresses have starred in other movies with great houses, too, from The Proposal to Bewitched. The props department was tasked with filling hundreds of bottles to put inside these glass-fronted cabinets. The interior sets were all created in a studio in Los Angeles. For one thing, the girls don’t live with their aunts like they do in the movie. The movie was based on a bestselling novel by Alice Hoffman (Amazon affiliate link): Sisters Sally and Gillian moved in with their aunts Fran and Jet It took them 6 months to build the standing set, which was a hollow shell.Ī side porch overlooks the garden and the water: The story takes place in New England, but the house was built on Washington’s San Juan Island ( Friday Harbor).Ī photo taken during construction of the house: Standefer and Alesch were inspired by Victorian houses with 19th-century scrollwork and East Coast lighthouses. Note: This post contains affiliate links that may earn commission. Let’s take a look back at the now-iconic sets they built for it. She’s not the only one who was disappointed to hear that! We’ll always have the movie, though, and these photos of it to revisit. They had to break the news that it had just been an “architectural shell,” with nothing inside, telling her, “It was fictional. They say they even got a call from Barbra Streisand, who wanted to buy it. After the movie came out, we all flipped for it and wanted to know where the house was. It was empty inside and torn down after filming ended.ĭirector Griffin Dunne hired Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch of Roman and Williams to design a house that looked like it could be home for generations of witches. The filmmakers were unable to find exactly the house they wanted in the type of location they envisioned, so they built this elaborate exterior instead. It cast such a spell over audiences that it’s hard to believe it’s not real. One of my favorite movie houses is the romantic white Victorian built for the 1998 movie Practical Magic.
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