“Delightful” isn’t typically a word one reaches for when describing a horror flick but it was the first that came to my mind when the credits rolled on the 1985 made-for-television movie “The Midnight Hour,” which I watched for the first time last week at the suggestion of a reader. While definitely spooky in tone, the film is also sweet, funny and boasts what Bloody Disgusting describes as an “earworm soundtrack . . . stuffed with notable October (and horror) favorites.” With retro staples like “Bad Moon Rising” and “In the Midnight Hour,” the flick certainly had my toes tapping! The cast, too, is loaded with classics, in this case ‘80s stars Dick Van Patten, Shari Belafonte, Peter DeLuise, Lee Montgomery and LeVar Burton of “Reading Rainbow” fame.
The beloved tale takes place, naturally, on Halloween night when highschooler Melissa Cavender (Belafonte), the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Lucinda Cavender (Jonelle Allen) – one of the most powerful witches to ever live! – unwittingly unleashes “all of the legendary demons of hell, as well as the dead with unfinished business on earth” on the small New England hamlet of Pitchford Cove, or “Pitchfork Cove” as it is also said to be known. The only person who can save the town – as well as humanity as a whole? Melissa’s shy high school buddy Phil Grenville (Montgomery), scion of Pitchford’s famed Witchhunter General, who thwarted Lucinda’s evil plans years prior.
Despite what the idyllically leaf-strewn background would have you believe, filming did not take place in New England, but in Los Angeles. Pitchford Cove’s quaint town square, with its local police station, barbershop and Witchcraft Museum, is actually Midwest Street at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, the very same locale that famously portrayed Stars Hollow on “Gilmore Girls.” The “old Cavender house,” where Melissa hosts a Halloween party and most everyone gets turned into a vampire, is Altadena’s oft-filmed Fair Oaks Ranch. And Monrovia’s Burr House pulls double duty in the film, popping up as both the home of Phil and his family as well as that of his jock friend Mitch Crandall (DeLuise).
One of the area’s oldest and most historic properties, the picturesque Victorian, located a few blocks north of downtown at 150 N. Myrtle Ave., was originally constructed in 1893, just six years after the city itself was incorporated. (Please remember this is a private home. Do not trespass or bother the residents or the property in any way.)
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake The three-story Queen Anne structure was built for Illinois farmer Frank W. Burr, his wife, Laura, and their four children, who came by train in 1889 from their native town of La Fox in the hopes of escaping bad weather after suffering through the Great Blizzard the year prior. Frank chose Monrovia as his ideal living place because, according to his son Myron in a 1972 interview with the Daily News-Post, “It was possible to go to school without crossing railroad tracks. Also, the fact that Monrovia had no saloons was a factor, although my father was not entirely a teetotaler.” The family first settled into a hotel, then a rental house until eventually building their Victorian on a five-parcel lot Burr had purchased for $350.
According to a Monrovia Old House Preservation Group report, Frank drew up plans for the property himself, based upon designs published in the book “Picturesque California Homes” written by brothers Samuel and Joseph Cather Newsom, the architects responsible for the historic Pinney House in nearby Sierra Madre. Burr also oversaw the construction of the 10-room dwelling, which was built entirely of redwood at a cost of $2,800, about $85,000 in 2021 dollars.
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake As originally constructed, the home lacked quite a few creature comforts considered a necessity in 2021 such as heating, electricity, indoor plumbing and bathrooms – an altogether scary concept! As such, the Burr family made use of an outhouse located in the backyard. The “three-seat, deluxe model,” so described in a 1976 Monrovia-News Post article, is still a fixture of the property today, the last remaining outhouse in all of the city!
Despite such seeming ruggedness, the interior was quite luxe with extensive redwood framing and molding, a parlor, a formal entry with a grand staircase boasting balustrades capped by authentic Tiffany lamps, and a kitchen with a butler’s pantry, a dumbwaiter and a “square opening in the floor through which perishables were transported to the cool basement,” per the News-Post.
Incredibly, the home remained in the Burr family through 1975 when Frank and Laura’s son, Myron, sold it to a pair of developers who performed a three-month restoration before selling it themselves. The developers also held a fundraiser on the premises in 1976 which then-former Governor Ronald Reagan, his wife Nancy and Pat Boone all attended.
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake The Burr House wound up in the hands of its current owners just a couple of years later and another restoration was performed, this time a full overhaul that took three and a half years to complete. During the extensive project, a period-appropriate carriage house was added to the north side of the property and the attic level was transformed into a spacious owners’ suite complete with a sauna, a sitting room and his-and-her baths. The dining room was also enlarged, three fireplaces installed, the front porch extended and rear porches added.
Today, the residence boasts six bedrooms and five baths in 4,700 square feet. Outside, the exquisite 0.5-acre lot features manicured gardens, multiple rolling lawns, a large pool and a spa.
Considering its preserved historic aesthetic, as well as the city of Monrovia’s propensity for filming, the Burr House was pretty much a shoo-in for illumination on the big and small screens! In fact, according to the Los Angeles Times, the property played host to 29 different productions from 1983 to 1990 alone!
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Image Credit: ABC -
Image Credit: Google One of those productions was “The Midnight Hour.” In the film, the front of the Burr House pops up as the Grenville residence several times. As evidenced above, despite the passage of more than three decades, the place remains a virtual time capsule from the year the movie was shot.
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Image Credit: ABC The interior of the home is also featured in segments involving Phil’s residence. The Burr family’s original six-burner, two-oven, one-broiler 1923 Universal gas stove can even be glimpsed in the background of a breakfast scene at the beginning of the film!
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Image Credit: ABC And, in a very unusual twist, the rear portion of the residence portrays the dwelling where Mitch lives with his preternaturally mean father, Judge Crandall (Kevin McCarthy), in a couple of scenes. Thanks to the fact that the home boasts both front and back porches, utilizing it as two entirely different properties onscreen was not very hard to pull off!
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Image Credit: CBS It is also at the Burr House that photographer Daniel Arnold (Robert Carradine) inadvertently brings to life the souls of several Curucai tribesmen in the season one episode of “The Twilight Zone” titled “Still Life.”
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Image Credit: TriStar Pictures The dwelling appears very briefly as the Boon residence at the end of the 1988 drama “Sweet Hearts Dance” in the scene in which Wiley Boon (Don Johnson) attempts to rekindle his relationship with his estranged wife, Sandra (Susan Sarandon). The segment seems to have been part of a re-shoot being that a different Victorian located at 113 Eden St. in Hyde Park, Vermont was utilized as the Boon home throughout the rest of the film.
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Image Credit: Paramount Pictures And it is outside of the Burr House’s garage/carriage house that Mike Donnelly (Chris Farley) votes – and gets stuck inside a voting booth – in the 1996 comedy “Black Sheep.”