Kristen Stewart’s ‘Twilight’ House Is Now an Insanely Popular Vacation Rental

At the time the movie was filmed, the residence was owned by a man named Dean Koenig, who told House Beautiful that the location manager “loved the fact that the house had its original windows and doors and that it hadn’t had all of its character remodeled out of it.” The property certainly resonated with audiences, too, quickly becoming a popular pilgrimage site for “Twilight” fans who began stopping by regularly to snap photos shortly after the film hit screens.

Koenig wound up putting the pad on the market for $349,900 in August 2018 and it sold just six weeks later at $13,000 over asking. The buyer? Uber Twihard Amber Neufeld and her husband, also named Dean, who live about 30 miles away in Hillsboro. Amber was, of course, long familiar with the property, having popped by to take some pictures of it herself years prior. As detailed in The Chronicle, though the Neufelds were looking to buy at the time, Amber initially scheduled a viewing for the sole purpose of catching a glimpse at the iconic interiors where filming of her favorite movie had taken place. One look, though, and the couple was smitten. They quickly snapped the place up, eventually deciding to transform it into a vacation rental – but not just any vacation rental. The Swan house was to be the ultimate film tourism experience for the legions of “Twilight” fans across the globe.

As such, Amber set about painstakingly re-creating the pad’s onscreen aura, a process she documented on the home’s official Facebook page. For “Saga” purists, Neufeld, who has been accumulating memorabilia from the franchise since the beginning, was the perfect person to steward the project. She told The Chronicle, “I started off collecting things like clothing and things from the movies just because it was fun.” She has since compiled leagues more ephemera thanks to fellow fans who have generously donated items to display on site. Today, the Swan house serves as a veritable “Twilight” museum. Just a few of the items dotted throughout the premises include a replica dreamcatcher made by the same artist who created the one that famously hung above Bella’s bed in 2009’s “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” as well as duplicates of costumes worn by various characters throughout the franchise. “The star of the collection,” though, as Amber says, is definitely the house!

The charming property, which was originally built in 1935 and sits on a welcoming 0.27-acre lot on a leafy cul-de-sac just blocks from the Columbia River, offers five bedrooms and two baths in 2,506 square feet. Inside, you’ll find hardwood flooring throughout, plenty of original built-ins and handsome leaded glass cabinetry.

The home’s interior color schematic was changed significantly prior to filming back in 2008. As director Catherine Hardwicke, who has a background in architecture as well as production design, explained in “Twilight: Director’s Notebook,” “One of the first things you often do when you film in a house is paint the white walls darker. You can’t easily control the light if it is bouncing off big white surfaces. Rich colors also add to the mood and character of the place.” 

So the production team got to work painting the entry, stairs and second floor hallway a light yellow, the living and dining rooms a soft blue and the kitchen walls and cabinets a mint green. Fortunately for Amber and fans alike, Koenig chose to leave the paint intact after filming wrapped. He told House Beautiful, “If you ever have the chance to have your room colors picked by a production designer, you won’t be sorry.” The crew also left behind surplus paint from the shoot, which the Neufelds made use of for needed touch-ups before renting the place out.

Thanks to Amber’s efforts, visiting the home truly feels like stepping into the movie – an amazing feat being that 13 years have passed since filming took place.

According to the Airbnb listing, the table that currently outfits the dining room is the same one seen in “Twilight!” It appears that the chairs surrounding it were screen-used, as well!

The room that got the most screen time, of course, was Bella’s. That space can be found upstairs. The corner suite was painted green for the shoot and twinkle lights, a massive bulletin board and shelving were bought in, as well – all of which Amber has exactingly re-created.

Interestingly though, three spaces were actually used to portray Bella’s room, two of which were sets. As Hardwicke explains in “Twilight: Director’s Notebook,” “Bella’s bedroom scenes that had to connect with the hall were shot at the house location in St. Helens. We also built an exact match of this room near the baseball field so we could move to ‘cover’ if the sun came out. In that set, we shot more intimate scenes.”

Later, after principal filming wrapped and cast and crew had returned to Los Angeles, it was decided that reshoots of a few segments were needed, including the scene in which Edward sleeps over. So Bella’s room was once again reconstructed – this time at the Elks Lodge in Pasadena. It is there that Bella and Edward’s famous first kiss was lensed, as well as the stunt involving Edward shooting away from her and the montage in which he lays next to her and watches her sleep.

For budgetary reasons, filming of “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” as well 2010’s “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” was shifted to the Vancouver area, where a facade of Bella’s house was re-created on a vacant lot inside Keery Park at 18746 28th Ave. in Surrey. The fabrication was a near-exact replica of the pad in St. Helens, aside from the addition of a bay window in Bella’s room, which became a necessary element for several scenes. The structure was dismantled after “Eclipse” wrapped, but it is still visible in all of its glory on Google Street View.

And the real house, of course, still stands proudly in St. Helens. The pad is currently being offered at $379 a night and guest reviews are steadily excellent, with one fan proclaiming, “The level of movie detail in this house is unbelievable and unforgettable – it was the stay of a lifetime,” while another effuses, “This was the best Airbnb experience I’ve ever had!”

Reservations, which are currently offered a year out, remain hard to come by, though. The August 2022 calendar opened to prospective guests on August 1 and sold out within four minutes according to the home’s Facebook page! For those who are still “unconditionally and irrevocably” hoping for a booking, new dates are released at 9 a.m. (PST) the first of every month, so mark your calendars accordingly.