Courteney Cox is certainly earning her horror queen status as of late! The fifth installment of the beloved “Scream” franchise, in which the “Friends” actress plays beleaguered journalist Gale Weathers, hit the big screen to much fanfare in January. And this past Sunday, her new series, “Shining Vale,” debuted on the Starz network. Billed as a horror-comedy, the show sees Cox stepping into the role of Patricia ‘Pat’ Phelps, a disgruntled housewife/stalled “lady porn” novelist who moves from Brooklyn, New York, to the sleepy fictional suburb of Shining Vale, Connecticut, in order to make a fresh start with her family following an illicit dalliance with her local handyman.
Upon arriving in the idyllic small town, Pat, her husband, Terry (Greg Kinnear), and their two children, Gaynor (Gus Birney) and Jake (Dylan Gage), settle into their new home, a massive, dilapidated old mansion in desperate need of some updating that they picked up for “$200 below asking – in this market!” As they soon discover, ripped carpeting, rusty-hinged doors and burned-out lights aren’t the pad’s only drawbacks. Shortly after moving in, Pat begins to experience strange happenings, including seeing the specters of former residents. Whether the spirits are real or imagined is yet to be determined, though, because as the onscreen text that opens episode one informs us, “Women are roughly twice as likely as men to suffer from depression. Symptoms include: Sense of helplessness, insomnia, change in sex drive, hallucinations and feeling completely out of control. Women are also roughly twice as likely to be possessed by a demon. The symptoms are the same . . . “
While chock full of funny moments, the show teeters on the dark side, delving into topics like mental illness, marital strife and alcoholism, with the decidedly sunny backdrop of Shining Vale serving as the perfect foil for the somber subject matter.
Producers looked to Los Angeles’ Burbank and Pasadena areas to create the fictional suburban hamlet. Shining Vale’s quaint downtown, with its park, central gazebo and bookstore café named “Scarlet Latte,” is actually the Midwest Street section of the Warner Bros. Studio backlot. Shining Vale Pharmacy, which Pat pops into in episode two, can be found on Midwest Street, as well – and it’s a spot that should look familiar to fans of “Pretty Little Liars” as it also portrayed Diva Dish, the clothing boutique where CeCe Drake (Vanessa Ray) worked on the popular series. In “Shining Vale’s” premiere episode, Pat waits for the school bus with Gaynor and Jake on the 1100 block of Glendon Wy. in South Pasadena. And the show’s central location, the mansion the Phelps family calls home, is another South Pasadena locale. Said to be located on Elm St., in truth, it can be found tucked away behind tall hedges at 423 Oaklawn Ave. (Please remember this is a private residence. Do not trespass or bother the property or its owners in any way.)
-
Image Credit: Zillow Known as Oaklawn Manor in real life, the stately dwelling stands at the tail end of the famed Oaklawn Historic District, a gorgeous enclave of about 30 historic properties situated on a curving tree-lined 0.2-mile stretch of road.
Initially established in 1904, Oaklawn was the brainchild of the South Pasadena Realty and Investment Company. Architects Henry and Charles Greene, prolific purveyors of the American Arts and Crafts movement, were pegged to design the layout of the street, the stone portals that stand at its entrance and a footbridge leading to Fair Oaks Ave. by which early residents could access local streetcars. Dubbed “Suburb de Luxe,” parcels were offered undeveloped to “those who want the best in every particular,” as noted by Patch, with prospective buyers advised that “anyone wanting low-priced lots need not apply.”
Residences eventually built on the 75-foot wide street run the gamut of architectural styles from Craftsman to Spanish to mid-century modern, with each seemingly more spectacular than the last.
And standing like a beacon at the southern tip is Oaklawn Manor, a Tudor Revival masterpiece erected in 1904 that features five bedrooms and six baths in an impressive 8,015 square feet. Incredibly, up until last year, the two-story property had remained in the same family for over eight decades! Last sold in the 1940s, it most recently hit the market in September 2020, repped by Bret Parsons, Aaron Montelongo and Jordan Nedeff of Compass, eventually closing the following August for a cool $6 million.
-
Image Credit: Zillow Though characterized in the listing information as a “spectacular development & renovation opportunity,” Oaklawn Manor is undeniably striking as is! While certainly in need of some updates (the kitchen is not even shown in the MLS imagery giving a good indication as to its outdated state), describing the property as having “good bones” would be a vast understatement.
Featuring “baronial-size” rooms, the “elaborately detailed” residence is a true architectural marvel, which becomes apparent as soon as one steps over the threshold into the formal entry with its floor-to-ceiling wood paneling, grand wraparound staircase and gallery landing complete with four exquisite stained glass windows.
-
Image Credit: Zillow Living spaces, most of which rival hotel ballrooms in size, scope and detail, include a formal dining room, a library, a sitting room, a family room and a living room.
Elaborately carved beamed ceilings, custom wallpapering, extensive built-ins and a whopping five fireplaces can be found dotted throughout.
The impressive manse stands on a large two-parcel, street-to-street corner lot measuring 1.3 acres dense with mature foliage and featuring a wraparound driveway, a motor court and a kidney bean-shaped pool. Also situated on the property is a 1,990-square-foot coach house with two separate guest apartments and an 825-square-foot pool house with a kitchen, office and bathroom.
-
Image Credit: Zillow The recent sale proved a fortuitous one for the new owners. Not only is the pad now small-screen famous thanks to its role in “Shining Vale,” but it was also selected to be this year’s Pasadena Showcase House of Design. As such, it is currently undergoing a massive three-month room-by-room renovation under the guidance of some of Southern California’s most premier interior designers and will open to the public for tours beginning April 24th – which means those hoping to see the “Shining Vale” mansion in person will soon have the chance! Tickets can be purchased here.
-
Image Credit: Starz -
Image Credit: Zillow Though it will likely look much different once the Showcase renovations are complete, when Oaklawn Manor was selected for its role on “Shining Vale,” the exterior was in need of fresh paint and the front yard teeming with mulch-covered expanses and overgrown foliage. It proved the perfect aesthetic to represent the Phelps’ dilapidated onscreen home.
Series production designer Jeff Schoen told the ADG website that art director Elizabeth Cummings found the residence via a fortuitous MLS listings search. Calling it “the perfect location,” he says, “Within moments, she was sending me pictures of what became The House That Keeps on Giving.”
-
Image Credit: Starz -
Image Credit: Zillow The pad indeed gave the production team a lot of material to work with! Of the “120-year-old Tudor revival time capsule,” Schoen told ADG, “Variously stuck in different eras, from 1890 to 1940 to 1960, all of its wear and tear was wonderfully embraced. Perfectly peeling turn-of-the-century wallpaper, with just the right accents of water damage here and there. Threadbare seamed carpet shredded to nothingness as it ran up the master staircase. Hand stenciled paint flaking so badly as to appear to drip down from the low expanse of beams in the dining room. The house was equally amazingly furnished. As though the last guest of a cocktail party in June of 1928 had just stumbled out the door.”
Standing at the heart of the story, in much the same way that the Murder House did in the first season of “American Horror Story,” virtually every square inch of Oaklawn Manor appeared in the pilot episode. Once the series got picked up by the Starz network, Schoen and his team painstakingly re-created the pad’s perfectly patinaed interior at Warner Bros. Studio. As Kinnear told the Boston Herald, “We shot the first episode in South Pasadena (Calif.), where we found this amazing house; then, somehow, they managed to create this whole universe on the lot. Just the transformation of that has been amazing.”
The massive 8,000+-square-foot set takes up a whopping three soundstages on the Warner Bros. lot, including Stage 5, which, in a fun twist, served as home to Cox’s breakout hit “Friends” during its first year on the air. The NBC series then moved to the larger Stage 24 for seasons two through ten.
-
Image Credit: Universal Pictures “Shining Vale” is not Oaklawn Manor’s first foray onto the screen. The Tudor also appeared in interior shots of the mansion belonging to Julia Rainbird (Cathleen Nesbitt) in Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, the 1976 thriller “Family Plot.”
-
Image Credit: Universal Pictures -
Image Credit: MLS Incredibly, some of the décor seen in the movie remained in place up until the recent sale, including the red tufted couch that Rainbird sat on during her seances with psychic Blanche Tyler (Barbara Harris).
-
Image Credit: Starz -
Image Credit: MLS Schoen loved that factoid so much that he decided to incorporate the couch into “Shining Vale’s” scenery. In the pilot, Oaklawn Manor’s library doubles as the office of Pat and Terry’s therapist and smack dab in the middle of it he placed the “Family Plot” sofa. The room was then re-created at Warner Bros. once the show got picked up – and the couch right along with it, serving as a secret little nod to the Master of Suspense himself.