There is just something about Christmas in the movies! Twinkle lights seem to shine brighter, boughs of holly look more lush and noble firs appear to stand taller when captured onscreen. Such is definitely the case with Netflix’s latest holiday-themed offering, the rom-com “Love Hard,” which hit the streamer earlier this month. Chronicling unlucky-in-love dating columnist Natalie Bauer (Nina Dobrev), who shows up at her online crush’s house shortly before Christmas only to learn that he has been catfishing her, the film is set in the snowy small-town wonderland of Lake Placid, New York, though filming primarily took place in Vancouver, British Columbia. With a backdrop awash in a dazzling array of Yuletide finery, rich reds and greens permeate the screen at every turn.
The movie’s holiday glow-up comes courtesy of production designer/art director Patrick M. Sullivan, of “Mary Poppins Returns,” “Behind the Candelabra” and “Memoirs of a Geisha” fame, who had me itching to drag out my Christmas décor immediately upon watching, despite the fact that it was barely November at the time.
While “Love Hard’s” ambiance is festive through and through, one locale definitely shines heads and tails above the rest. Decked out in multi-colored lights, red bows and a pristine dusting of snow, Shimmering Pines, the charming Victorian-style nursing home where catfisher Josh Lin (Jimmy O. Yang) and his holiday-loving family take Natalie for an evening of caroling mid-film, is Christmas bliss epitomized!
Known as the Wilga House in real life, the picturesque Queen Anne can be found at 1020 Semlin Dr. on a leafy corner lot in Gastown’s Grandview-Woodland neighborhood, which, as described by the City of Vancouver website, is “an ethnically diverse area full of eclectic charm and character.” The region is also teeming with handsome and historic architecture, each tree-lined block seemingly more unique than the last.
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Image Credit: Google As detailed in a 2016 The Province article about “10 magnificent mansions of Metro Vancouver,” the Wilga House was originally built for William Miller, an Australian ex-pat who departed the land Down Under in 1903 alongside his brother J.J. following an extended period of drought. Upon landing in Canada, the Millers quickly amassed a fortune by developing real estate in the port city of Prince Rupert on British Columbia’s Northern Coast.
The fruit of William’s labor was Wilga, which he commissioned in 1909 at a cost of $10,000. According to The Province, the property was named “rather poetically” in honor of the wilga plant, or Geijera parviflora, a drought-resistant willow shrub known for its white flowers and round fruit, which populated the Miller family’s former homestead in Australia.
William soon experienced another drought, this time of the financial variety, and by 1917 found himself bankrupt. He was eventually forced to put his beloved Victorian up for sale in the mid-20s, marketing the sprawling property for use as a possible hospital, sanitarium or school. A 1925 Vancouver Sun ad, which deemed Wilga “one of the best homes in Vancouver,” noted that the two-and-a-half-story estate featured an impressive nine bedrooms and such luxe amenities as a billiard room, a library, a sewing room, a kitchen with two pantries, mosaic tile flooring, a formal entry and three fireplaces. Outside on the 0.8-acre lot were two tennis courts, a fruit garden and “valuable shrubbery and rockery.”
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Image Credit: Google In October of that year, the pad was picked up by the St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church and transformed into a parish, with weekly masses held on the premises. By 1939, the congregation had grown such that a more extensive facility was needed and a larger Romanesque-style parish was built adjoining Wilga to the east. The Victorian was, in turn, reconfigured into a monastery that provided housing for up to 16 Franciscan monks.
In 1990, the St. Francis organization embarked upon a massive renovation to restore Wilga to its original grandeur, a project that won a City of Vancouver Heritage Award. Today, the site serves as a rectory for the parish priest. And it’s also a filming location!
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Image Credit: Google Only one scene from “Love Hard” takes place at the Victorian, though quite a lot of action is packed into the brief six-and-a-half-minute segment. Not only does Josh’s older brother, Owen (Harry Shum Jr.), who is “psychotically into” Christmas, lead the Lin family in a rousing – albeit somewhat inappropriate – rendition of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” at the house, but Natalie and Josh also regale the Shimmering Pines residents with a sweet #metoo-era version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” while there. And (spoiler!) it is at Wilga that Josh asks Natalie to marry him, and Owen, in an attempt to outshine Josh’s proposal, announces that his wife, Chelsea (Mikaela Hoover), is pregnant.
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Image Credit: Google Though the Victorian is undeniably picturesque in real life, Sullivan truly elevated its curb appeal and overall warmth for the shoot by wrapping the porch columns and front staircase in pine fronds, outfitting the yard with colorful poinsettias and draping the exterior in bright white lights, creating the perfect wintry backdrop for the scene.
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Image Credit: Hollywood North Buzz Only the exterior of the Wilga House appeared in ”Love Hard.” Interestingly, a secondary scene said to take place at Shimmering Pines was shot at another location altogether. The arched ceilinged ballroom where Josh and Natalie teach the elderly residents the ins and outs of online dating later in the movie can be found about five miles away at the historic Overlynn Mansion. Located at 401 Esmond Ave. N., the British Arts and Crafts-style estate “was one of the first houses constructed in Vancouver Heights and by far the most grandiose and impressive,” according to Canada’s Historic Places. Like Wilga, Overlynn was also built in 1909, but at a considerably higher cost of $75,000. Designed by the Maclure and Fox architecture firm, the property, which, much as it functioned in “Love Hard,” is part of a retirement home in real life, is a location manager favorite, having appeared in everything from “Psych” to “The Magicians” to “The Flash.”