One of the backlot street settings in the Universal Studios lot in Universal City, California, is called Colonial Street. Over 60 years of films and television have been filmed on the street set. It was utilized during the 2004–2012 filming of the television show Desperate Housewives, where the street was referred to as Wisteria Lane. The roadway had a minor facelift to eliminate the character of Wisteria Lane after the filming of Desperate Housewives wrapped up so that it could be used in other productions. The majority of the recognizable white fencing and wisteria had been taken down as of May 2012[update]. Colonial Street has since been included in the NBC comedies About a Boy and Telenovela, which stars Eva Longoria from Desperate Housewives.
Does Wisteria Lane actually exist?
Now, I understand your question. Could your wish to reside in (or at least visit) one of these homes come true? Or are they merely sound stages that have been designed to appear as real locations on the show?
Wisteria Lane and the town of Fairview are made up, but the real Wisteria Lane that we see in the program is on a full-sized set at Universal Studios in Hollywood. Though you might not have known it previously, you’ve undoubtedly seen Colonial Street in some of your other favorite TV episodes and movies over the years.
Who are they, you ask? There have been sequences from numerous television shows, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Matlock, Murder She Wrote, Leave It to Beaver, and many more. The Burbs, Deep Impact, and Why Him? are just a few of the films that have utilized the street. Even a few music videos, such as Smash Mouth’s All Star and Michael Buble’s It’s a Beautiful Day, have been shot on the streets.
You might be astonished to learn that several of the homes genuinely have functional interiors that have been utilized to film scenes for Desperate Housewives.
For instance, the interiors of Susan’s kitchen/dining room and Gaby’s living room, dining room, and foyer are 100% authentic! The remaining interior images of their homes are shot on a sound stage. Lynette’s home, meanwhile, is merely an outside shell with all interior scenes being recorded on a set, as is typically the case with huge productions.
The funniest thing I learned? The exterior of Bree’s home serves as the restrooms for the actors and crew while filming, despite the fact that all of the scenes from her home are also shot on a studio sound stage.
In Desperate Housewives, where is Fairview meant to be located?
The fictional “Eagle State” and the town of “Fairview” both include Wisteria Lane. The television program is not specifically set in any one current state. The city is designed to represent the idyllic suburban lifestyle that is sometimes stereotyped as being characteristic of 1950s America.
It is particularly challenging to determine closeness because the show mentions Salt Lake City, New York City, and Chicago without specifying how close or far they are to those locations.
The zip codes on the Wisteria Lane addresses are in California, according to the postage on mail.
What state is Wisteria Lane located in?
The Loop, the Obi-Wan epilogue. In the Eagle State’s suburban community of Fairview, Wisteria Lane is a cul-de-sac. It serves as the principal location for Desperate Housewives, with the majority of the plotlines focusing on its inhabitants.
What faith does Bree Van De Kamp practice?
One of the four main characters in Desperate Housewives is Bree Van de Kamp. After the passing of her mother, Bree’s father wed Eleanor, a lady she did not get along with, and she raised her family in Rhode Island. Bree left for Lake Forest College, which is close to Chicago, to get away from her stepmother’s expectations. On one of Eleanor’s visits, Bree added that she had to earn every compliment her stepmother ever gave her. Rex Van de Kamp and Bree first met at a Young Republicans event. Following graduation, they were married, had two kids—Andrew and Danielle—and relocated to Fairview.
Bree has been referred to be a “hyper-uptight WASP” because she is written in large part as an exaggerated version of the traits frequently associated with White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Americans.
[4] Bree is known for her obsessive-compulsive personality and work ethic, which occasionally border on neurosis. Although the authors have refrained from providing an official diagnosis, it is acknowledged that the character suffers from obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Rex once referred to it by name, but the character refers to her “quirks” in terms of anal retentiveness. Bree may have developed her perfectionism after her mother was killed in a hit-and-run accident; at the age of 10, Bree washed her mother’s blood off the driveway. She claimed that she felt much better after everything was immaculate.
Bree is renowned for her Martha Stewart-caliber homemaking skills, especially for her gourmet meals, sweet breakfast goodies, and pineapple bran muffins. She is knowledgeable about firearms and a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association. She also owns four rifles. Bree is well-known for being a member of the neighborhood Presbyterian church, as seen in the episode Sunday, and for supporting the Republican Party, as revealed in the season 3 premiere. She has occasionally been referred to as “Nancy Reagan” by her neighbors Angie Bolen, Gabrielle Solis, and Renee Perry.
Bree reportedly has a timeshare home in Aspen that she seldom uses and has been residing at 4354 Wisteria Lane in Fairview since 1994. Bree is modeled after writer Marc Cherry’s mother, and the Van de Kamps are modeled after his upbringing. Lynette Scavo’s family is based on Marc Cherry’s childhood, but Bree’s family was based on his adolescent years. [5] The 5 Mrs. Buchanans (Bree) and The Crew (Rex), two of Marc Cherry’s earlier unsuccessful sitcoms, served as the inspiration for Bree and Rex’s names (Rex).
Both of Bree’s marriages fell apart and ended in divorce; however, Rex passed away before their divorce was formalized. Both of Bree’s ex-husbands made attempts at reconciliation with her after she filed for divorce. Rex was successful, but Orson Hodge, her second husband, was not. Bree had an affair with Karl Mayer, her divorce attorney and the ex-husband of her friend Susan Delfino, during the dissolution of her second marriage. Bree did, however, remarry Trip Weston, her attorney, in the series finale, making him her third husband.
Of the four major housewives, Bree is the only one who does not appear in each episode. Due to Cross’ pregnancy, Bree only made a cameo appearance in “My Husband, The Pig” and then completely disappeared from its six subsequent episodes (“Dress Big,” “Liaisons,” “God, That’s Good,” “Gossip,” “Into the Woods,” and “What Would We Do Without You?”).
The Cleaver home was it real?
When discussing the Cleavers’ home, it’s important to keep in mind that over the span of the 1957–1963 television series, Beaver and his family actually resided in two separate homes.
The Cleavers resided at 485 Maple Drive in the show’s fictional town of Mayfield for the first two seasons. Their next residence, still in Mayfield, was at 211 Pine Street during seasons 3 through 6. The house at 211 Pine Street has grown to be the one most associated with the show in the years after the first episode aired.
In addition to exterior façade sets on a studio backlot street, both Cleaver residences had interior sets constructed on sound stages. At the Republic Studios, a residential set street included the Maple Drive house facade (now CBS Studio Center). The former Cleaver home has either disappeared or been significantly altered.
The last Cleaver residence was, and still is, located in California’s Universal City Studios.
For the 1955 Humphrey Bogart film Desperate Hours, the house and garage facades were built. Despite the fact that this was a Paramount Pictures film, it was common for studios to hire each other’s backlots for production purposes. To create place for the new facade, a one-story bungalow-style house was moved to the end of the street. Internally at Universal, the residence was referred to as the “Paramount House.”
The home is basically the same in Desperate Hours as it would be on “Beaver” four years later.
Little was done to the house to prepare it for the Beaver movie. A room addition on the garage side as well as a few other minor components were taken out. Unlike some, the outside of the home was finished and intricately designed to match the interior Cleaver house sets. This meant that a wider variety of settings could be created than an actual outside picture. Because of this, outside shots of houses and streets were regularly employed in the filming of “Beaver.” There were “stock” pictures taken, like Ward’s automobile pulling up to his house or straightforward “establishing” shots of the house during the day or at night. Additionally, a majority of the episodes included scenes when some of the action occurred outside the house. Contrary to many sitcoms of the era, where the entire show took place on just a few interior sets, this gave the show a considerably more “movie-like” feel.
The facade continued to appear in supporting roles in other films and television shows after “Beaver” ended in 1963 and into the 1960s, typically as just another home in the backdrop.
From 1969 through 1976, the mansion played a prominent part in the television series Marcus Welby, M.D. This time, the front of the house underwent a significant transformation to become the main character’s home office. Colonial Street and a few other set streets were moved to the western end of the back lot by Universal in 1981. On a new Colonial Street that had been redesigned to better accommodate the tour trams, the houses were reassembled in a different order.
The original Cleaver’s garage was relocated and wound up on Industrial Street, which is lined with modest (mainly one-story) homes. Two homes from the former Colonial Street were moved to the new Industrial Street in 1981, and one of those homes is next to the garage.
The house’s Marcus Welby renovations remained in place until 1983, when they were undone for the filming of “Still the Beaver,” a CBS television movie-of-the-week that resumed the Cleaver family’s tale in the 1980s. A New Leave it to Beaver series that aired until 1989 was born from the TV movie.
There were a few minor variations between the old show and the new Beaver series during production, but none were particularly noticeable to viewers. This time, the garage set was closer to the house’s kitchen side and had a straightforward two-sided front. Even though it was smaller, the well-known breezeway structure was still present. Since there was a tram access road only a few feet from the back of the home, the exterior set’s rear was never photographed for the new series. Only internal sets on a soundstage were used for the shots of the Cleavers on the patio in the backyard. Ironically, June always desired a downstairs bathroom in the original series, therefore the Cleaver’s house facade also served as the location for Colonial Street’s facilities!
The New Leave it to Beaver’s 1988–1989 season’s filming was relocated to Universal Studios Florida. The outside house facade was left behind, while the inner sets for the program were packed away and put back together for filming at their new home in Orlando.
To create place for a new home exterior for the 1989 film “The Burbs,” the Cleaver house facade was once more removed. Even though the most well-known mansion on Colonial Street was no longer there, the street was given the name “Mayfield Place” in the film.
The Cleaver home facade was located at the end of a poorly paved road off the tram tour route in a remote area of the Universal backlot. The house is still located here, albeit in a relatively run-down condition. The same little region has recently been home to a few more ancient facades, notably Wally’s house from the New Beaver series. Although they are no longer part of a lavish residential street set, these sets are nevertheless available for use by film teams. Your attention will be drawn to the Leave it to Beaver House in the middle of Colonial Street if you take the tram trip today, however this is not the original house. It is the façade created for the Leave it to Beaver motion picture in 1996. Make no mistake, this is NOT the original house from the TV series, despite being identical in style and having all the distinguishing characteristics of it (3 dormer windows, garage, bay windows, and brick walkway leading to the front door in the center of the house). The tram tour interpreters do not distinguish between the two for some reason.