Some may consider many of the stars of the “Real Housewives” to be monstrous, but in creating his 2019 mockumentary horror-comedy series “What We Do in the Shadows” for FX, Hollywood multi-hyphenate Jemaine Clement decided to turn the cameras on some actual monsters in the same vein as the Bravo franchise. Based on the 2014 film of the same name, the show chronicles the daily goings-on of centuries-old vampires who live together in a disheveled Staten Island estate. Executive producer Paul Simms told a New York Comic-Con audience, “We liked the idea that these vampires had maybe 200 years ago been sent to conquer America, but they’d sort of lost their way.” Along with the “Real Housewives,” some other unlikely sources provided Jemaine and his team inspo for the series. Rotten Tomatoes reports, “On the non-vampire side of things, they looked at the Metallica documentary ‘Some Kind of Monster’ and the classic ‘Grey Gardens’ to tackle roommate dysfunction and life in a dilapidated mansion.” It all adds up to a hilarious take on the bloodsucker genre.
While set in Staten Island, no part of the show is actually filmed there. The “What We Do in the Shadows” pilot was lensed in Los Angeles in early 2018 and, then, once the series got picked up, the production moved some 2,500 miles east to Toronto. The transition created a bit of a complication when it came to the show’s central location – the dimly-lit manse that serves as the lair of Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak) and his fellow vampires, Laszlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry), Nadja of Antipaxos (Natasia Demetriou) and Colin Robertson (Mark Proksch), as well as their Familiar, Guillermo de la Cruz (Harvey Guillén).
In truth, three different sites are used to portray the spooky estate, the most recognizable of which is a towering three-story dwelling located in South Pasadena. Known as the Torrance-Childs House, the looming structure can be found on a sleepy suburban corner at 929 Buena Vista St. (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 Situated on an oversized 0.77-acre tree-shadowed lot, the imposing structure was designed in 1902 by local architect Charles Wesley Buchanan, who, per the South Pasadenan website, was “one of the definers of the Pasadena Craftsman-style.” Clad in red brick and wood framing, the property was built as a winter house for Emma B. Childs, the widow of philanthropist and Philadelphia Ledger editor George W. Childs, whose 1894 obituary declared him the City of Brotherly Love’s “foremost citizen.” During her tenure, Emma’s good friend, former First Lady Lucretia Garfield, widow of 20th President James A. Garfield, was a frequent visitor.
Designed in the English Tudor Revival and Craftsman styles, the sprawling abode, which is a South Pasadena Cultural Heritage Landmark, cost $25,000 (about $800,000 today) to complete. With eight bedrooms and five baths in a colossal 13,393 square feet, John Bogert of The Daily Breeze was not exaggerating when he called the place “the biggest house I have ever seen that did not have the word ‘palace’ attached to it.”
Buchanan outfitted the residence with plenty of extravagant creature comforts including beamed ceilings, an organ loft, multiple fireplaces, stained glass windows throughout, a sweeping central staircase and, most lavish of all, an indoor lap pool lined with marble and white tiles.
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake In 1910, Emma sold the luxe digs to Jared Sidney Torrance, founder of the South Bay city of the same name, who dubbed the property “Rose Hedge” in honor of its extensive gardens. Though Jared passed away in 1921, the place remained in his family for a decade afterward. In the years that followed, a couple of other notables called it home including Dr. Alan Weaver Hazelton, then honorary consul of Costa Rica, and William Bertrand Stevens, Bishop of the Episcopalian Diocese of Los Angeles, who installed a chapel on the premises which is still intact today.
In fact, when the property last sold in 1997, the vast majority of its original details were miraculously still intact, “from claw-foot tubs to marble sinks and crystal doorknobs” according to Bogert’s Daily Breeze article. Bogert also noted that the pad was in need of a lot of work at the time of the sale and if interior imagery is to be believed, it still is. So dilapidated was the residence at one point that locals even took to calling it the “South Pasadena Mystery House.”
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake The dwelling’s unkempt nature certainly renders it superlatively spooky, though, making it a go-to spot for location managers in need of a haunted house to feature onscreen.
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Image Credit: 20th Television -
Image Credit: Google The pilot episode of “What We Do in the Shadows” made use of the Torrance-Childs House in establishing shots of the vampires’ lair, as well as in some on-location filming including the scenes in which Guillermo is shown getting rid of the corpses of his masters’ many victims. Once the series moved to Toronto, producers found a much smaller, but similar-looking brick abode at 450 Pape Ave. in the Withrow Park neighborhood to stand in for the mansion in scenes taking place outside the vampires’ estate. But, in a somewhat odd choice, the Torrance-Childs abode continued to be utilized in establishing shots.
At some point between the filming of seasons one and two, the Pape Ave. property was sold and transformed into a women’s shelter, rendering it no longer accessible for filming. As such, the “What We Do in the Shadows” production team built a replica of that pad’s façade in a parking lot on the corner of Eastern and Heward Avenues in Toronto’s Studio District to utilize for shoots.
Then, out of the blue and completely confusing matters, producers began showcasing imagery of the Pape Ave. property instead of the Torrance-Childs House for all establishing shots during season three. “What We Do in the Shadows” housing situation, it seems, is even more confounding than one of Colin’s long diatribes explaining such banalities as Staten Island zoning ordinances!
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Image Credit: 20th Television The fabulously derelict interior of the vampires’ lair is nothing more than a set created by production designer Kate Bunch, who looked to “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” for inspiration. Series’ cinematographer D.J. Stipsen told the American Cinematographer website. “We referenced that film for the general sumptuousness of the vampires’ mansion, which was our main set. Our take, however, was that the Staten Island vampires have let their place go. The former glory is evident but now exists in a worn, faded and distressed state.”
The extensive set, which is comprised of a two-story foyer with a curving double staircase, a library, a dining room, numerous bedrooms, a darkroom and an attic, was configured to seem larger onscreen than it actually is. Stipsen explains that “sections of narrow corridors” were built to connect “the ‘fancy room,’ as Laszlo calls the dining room, to the foyer, so that we could confuse the audience a bit and make the house appear bigger when following the vampires from one room to another.”
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Image Credit: CBS “What We Do in the Shadows” is hardly the only production to feature the Torrance-Childs House. The estate also famously appeared as the home and S&M club belonging to dominatrix Lady Heather Kessler (Melinda Clarke) in several episodes of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” starting with season two’s “Slaves of Las Vegas.”
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Image Credit: CBS As one of “CSI’s” most popular recurring characters, Lady Heather – and her residence – went on to be featured numerous times throughout the show’s 15-season run, affording audiences multiple glimpses of pretty much every area of the Torrance-Childs House, including the stunning grand staircase.
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Image Credit: 20th Television The dwelling, namely the indoor pool area, serves as the lair of serial killer Gormogon (Laurence Todd Rosenthal) in the season three episode of “Bones” titled “The Pain in the Heart.”
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. Television And it plays the Beckworth Mansion, the local Eagle Creek, Calif. haunted house where Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) and the rest of the CBI team investigate the murder of architect Alan Foster (David Kilde) in the season two episode of “The Mentalist” titled “Red Scare.”