Taylor Swift is known for a lot of things, but producing mediocre music videos is not one of them. All of the songstress’ offerings, from “You Belong With Me” to “Shake It Off” to “You Need To Calm Down,” are inspired, cinematic and unique, not to mention beautifully styled, from the costumes and makeup right down to the locations. That is especially true of 2014’s “Blank Space,” which BuzzFeed recently ranked as number one in the singer’s vast catalog thanks to its many heavily stylized elements. As author Cameron Sackett details, “The house? Incredible. The looks? Incredible. Her acting? Incredible. This will go down in history as one of the greatest music videos of the 2010s. There never was a blank space at the top of this list because this is far and away Taylor Swift’s best music video.”
Highlighting the oft-repeated media narrative that Swift has a problematic history when it comes to the opposite sex, the video sees the singer wooing, romancing and then drastically “making all the tables turn” on model Sean O’Pry against the backdrop of an opulent old mansion. To direct the piece, Taylor enlisted Joseph Kahn, the veritable music video king behind some of the most iconic shoots of our time, including Eminem’s “Without Me,” Britney Spears’ “Toxic” and Brandy and Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine,” among countless others. “Blank Space” marked the first collaboration for Swift and Kahn and it proved a fruitful partnership, with Taylor walking away from the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards with the Best Pop Video and Best Female Video trophies safely in hand. (The two later teamed up to make magic with “Wildest Dreams,” “Bad Blood” and “Look What You Made Me Do.”)
The inspiration for “Blank Space’s” cinematography came from an unlikely place – Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 dystopian drama “A Clockwork Orange,” which Kahn happened to be watching when Swift first approached him to helm the piece. He explained to MTV, “There’s a lot of symmetrical framing that’s Kubrickian, which is a really funny way to approach a pop video. But it’s there if you look at the way there’s center-framing and symmetry throughout the whole thing.”
The overall look, though, is decidedly Swift, with the singer “dressed like a daydream” in eye-catching retro-inspired garb, holding one of her beloved “muskrats” and emoting in front of a breathtaking array of backdrops. Interestingly though, the mansion at the center of the story is not a singular spot, but two grand New York estates meshed together to appear as one.
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Image Credit: Margaret Trautmann, Compass All outdoor sequences and a few inside shots were lensed at Oheka Castle, a luxury hotel in the Long Island town of Huntington that initially served as the private home of financier Otto Hermann Kahn. The balance of the filming, including the majority of interior segments, took place about 15 miles away at Winfield Hall (pictured above), a plush estate originally built for drug store magnate Frank Winfield Woolworth in 1917.
Situated at the end of a winding circular driveway set far back from the street at 77 Crescent Beach Rd. in Glen Cove, the historic dwelling is one of the last remaining privately-owned Gilded Age estates, according to the NY State MLS. (Please remember this is a private home. Do not trespass or bother the residents or the property in any way.) And it just changed hands earlier this month for the first time in almost five decades!
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Image Credit: Margaret Trautmann, Compass Offered by Margaret Trautmann of Compass Greater NY LLC, the manse sold on February 16 for $8,250,000 after floating on and off the market several times over the past few years. No word on if the buyer was a Swiftie or not, but whoever snatched it up certainly secured themselves an exquisite piece of architecture – not to mention a significant property tax bill, which, according to Newsday, amounts to a whopping $250,000 annually!
The gorgeous abode was designed by C.P.H. Gilbert, who was also responsible for the Harry F. Sinclair House from “Cruel Intentions,” the stately townhouse from “The Undoing” and Otto Kahn’s Manhattan residence, which appeared in “A Perfect Murder.” The structure was commissioned following the loss of the Woolworths’ previous home, which was destroyed by a fire in 1916. Known as both Winfield Hall and the Woolworth Estate, Gilbert’s design cost an incredible $9 million to execute – about $216 million today!
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Image Credit: Margaret Trautmann, Compass The five and dime tycoon certainly got his money’s worth because the mansion, which boasts 12 bedrooms and 11 baths in an astounding 32,098 square feet, is a magnificent display of white marble surfaces, polished wood paneling, gilded ceilings and ornate plasterwork, with each room seemingly more spectacular than the last.
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Image Credit: NY State MLS Palatial in every way, a 1977 Green Bay Press-Gazette article had this to say about the structure, “Winfield Hall is reached from a modest residential street but from the time you turn through the arched gate and see the mansion at the end of the drive, it is like entering another world. The exterior of the three-story home is unpolished marble and it does indeed look like a modern castle. Perhaps the most impressive place in the home is the entranceway with a huge fireplace and million-dollar stairway.” In point of fact, the sweeping staircase actually cost two million dollars to construct per most sources, which is about $48 million today for those counting.
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Image Credit: Margaret Trautmann, Compass Along with the stunning formal entry, other elegant living spaces include a billiard room, a library, a sitting porch, a ballroom, a solarium and a Baroque music room that the Press-Gazette noted as containing “an Aeolian organ with built-in sound effects that cost $100,000 in 1917” and “pipes concealed behind ornately carved wood screens.” Dotted throughout the rest of the interior are elaborate coved ceilings trimmed with 14-karat gold leaf and an incredible 16 fireplaces. There’s also an elevator on the premises.
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Image Credit: Margaret Trautmann, Compass The sprawling 16.4-acre grounds boast a multitude of statuaries, formal gardens, rolling lawns and a massive 17,000-square-foot carriage house with a clock tower and parking for 11 cars.
Woolworth didn’t call the mansion home for very long. He passed away at the estate in 1919, just a couple of years after it was completed. His wife continued to live on the premises until she, too, passed away in 1924. The couple’s daughters then sold the property to none other than Richard S. Reynolds, of Reynolds Aluminum fame. Legend has it the businessman developed the company’s trademark aluminum foil in the carriage house, which he converted to a laboratory during his tenure.
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Image Credit: Margaret Trautmann, Compass Winfield Hall sold to its last owner, Martin T. Carey, younger brother of then New York governor Hugh Carey, way back in 1976, after which it was restored as part of the Annual Designers’ Showcase in 1977. The entrepreneur/preservationist subsequently held onto the manse for the next four decades, with the recent sale executed by his estate following his death at the age of 98 in June 2020.
Today, the stunning structure stands as a virtual time capsule from the Golden Age of New York real estate, a strikingly pristine example of early 20th Century architecture, with some serious screen cred to boot!
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Image Credit: NY State MLS The “Blank Space” video made use of several of Winfield Hall’s interior spaces, including the glorious music room, which was repurposed to appear as a dining room for the shoot. It is against the backdrop of the chamber’s striking floor-to-ceiling carved fireplace, gilded ceiling and glittering chandelier that Taylor toasts to her new love at the beginning of the video.
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Image Credit: Margaret Trautmann, Compass The gleaming entry was also featured as one of the spots where Swift spins out of control mid-song, mascara appropriately dripping down her face.
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Image Credit: HBO But “Blank Space” is hardly the only credit to Winfield Hall’s name. The property also stood in for the supposed Pasadena-area mansion belonging to Monte Beragon (Guy Pearce) in the 2011 HBO miniseries “Mildred Pierce.” Of giving the place a Sunshine State feel for the show, location manager Joe Guest told Patch that numerous palm trees were brought in to outfit the grounds, none of which would “have survived the winter at the Glen Cove Mansion on Crescent Beach Road” in real life.
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Image Credit: NBCUniversal The residence popped up as the Hamptons home of Boris Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz (Campbell Scott) in the season three episode of “Royal Pains” titled “Run, Hank, Run.” Only the interior was utilized, though. In an interesting twist, the exteriors shown were that of Oheka Castle, the very same spot used for “Blank Space’s” outside shots.
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Image Credit: HBO Winfield Hall played the Chicago hotel where Mike D’Angelo (Louis Cancelmi) confronted George Mueller (Michael Shannon) in the season five episode of “Boardwalk Empire” titled “The Good Listener,” though not much of the residence can be seen in the scene.
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Image Credit: 2K Sports And it served as the setting for a series of commercials featuring Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to promote the professional wrestling video game “WWE 2K20″ in 2019.