I’m Chip Wood, and I’m on the studio backlot known as the Warner Brothers Ranch, where
not everything is quite what it seems — fiberglass!
This backlot is located just north of Warner Brothers Studio in Hollywood,
and is not accessible to the public.
It began as the 40-acre Columbia Ranch in 1934.
Today it has 15 buildings on 32 acres.
Most of them are houses, and they can be seen in thousands of commercials,
films, and TV shows.
The studio map names the facades for their most famous appearances,
some dating back to the 1930’s.
The three houses used for WandaVision are best known for their roles in Bewitched,
Lethal Weapon, and Christmas Vacation.
Here are some aerial views of the lot, and we’ll look at the facades used as the homes
of Agatha, Dottie, and Wanda, as well as other portions of the Ranch.
Agatha’s house is one of the most famous on the lot because it was the home of
Samantha Stevens in the TV series Bewitched in the 1960’s.
Many of the houses on the lot have a practical interior, but none of them were used for the
show, so like all of the homes, it’s only used for exterior shots.
You see the fiberglass brick paneling, and if we take a look inside,
you see that it’s quite shallow.
In fact, the back of the house was open to the elements until it was enclosed a few years ago.
In the scene that occurs in Agatha’s basement,
a really clever homage to the house’s history can be found in this easter egg:
Next door to Agatha, we have Dottie’s house.
I remember a car ended up in that bay window during the season finale,
but that was done with GCI.
This is also where they faced off in the street.
Dotty is Wanda’s snooty neighbor.
On the lot it’s called the Lethal Weapon house.
This is the practical interior of the house.
It looks like it was last used to get actors into makeup for a production.
This is a stairway to nowhere.
You’ll often see mismatched paint, clashing wallpaper, and different floor types
from room to room because they only dress what they have to shoot.
None of these house interiors was used to film the show, as interior scenes
were shot on a soundstage in Atlanta, some with a live audience.
So we’ve seen the Bewitched house, then the Murtaugh’s home in Lethal Weapon,
and next door is Wanda’s house.
It was used in the film American Beauty, and it’s best known as the Griswold’s home
in Christmas Vacation.
A lot of alterations have been made over the years to fit the needs of the various productions
that have filmed on the lot, and it even changes looks during the first few episodes of WandaVision.
The lower floor is practical, though it wasn’t used to shoot Christmas Vacation.
Instead, interiors were shot on Warner’s stage 21,
where the entryway was duplicated for continuity.
The upstairs is not built out for practical use, and the floor covering is
vinyl painted to simulate wood and brick.
Here we look in from the porch, then out the front door, and we get this POV in episode
7 when Wanda confronts Monica and knocks her ass across the street.
In the background, we see the Alan House, best known
for its appearance in the series Pushing Daisies.
Wanda’s place (the Griswold house), was built in 1989 for the movie Christmas Vacation,
along with the house to the east.
This is the Chester house, and here you can see both homes dressed for the film
American Beauty in 1998.
These two houses replaced the Deeds home.
Moving on, we see the Warner Animation Building in the distance,
and again, the Alan house across the street.
Right next to it is a large pool that sits at the center of the lot,
and can be seen in episode 2.
It features three underwater camera portals, and has appeared in hundreds of TV shows,
and the movies True Lies, Cape Fear, and the Witches of Eastwick.
In this scene we get a great look at the Bel Air house,
located right across the street from the Bewitched house.
It’s best known for the TV series The Middle.
It’s a one-story structure, but like many of these homes,
it has looked drastically different in past shows.
Here, it’s dressed for Christmas Vacation.
This is one of the few houses that’s truly a facade, though the entryway dividers
were reproduced to match those on the interior set.
Behind the Bel-Air house we see this church at the end of the street.
Here in the southwest corner of the lot, a massive Convent set used in the series
The Flying Nun occupied this area until it was lost in a fire in 1970, and this church replaced it.
It has since appeared in countless TV shows.
Moving down the street we find the Partridge house, which bears no resemblance to the home
seen in the show because it was rebuilt with a different configuration after the fire.
The earlier design is used in the Kravitzes home on Bewitched,
and the later design is seen in Pleasantville.
On the right is the garage where the band would rehearse,
and the gate that led to the Partridge family’s back yard.
Next door is one of the oldest structures on the lot, the Blondie house,
and it’s known for I Dream of Jeannie and other series.
It’s also a working office as the Studio Operations building.
In the background here we see the Oliver House.
It’s named for the Marge Oliver character from the 1935 movie Party Wire,
which was the first movie ever to be filmed at the Ranch.
All of these houses are on Blondie Street, and the reason it has a horseshoe shape is that, well,
on any backlot, the streets are curved or angled to give the illusion
of a much longer street, or to shoot one architectural style without the other houses obstructing the shot.
It also allows you to point the camera in any direction without seeing reality.
An exception is the view towards the WB Animation Building, where houses were digitally inserted in post.
I’m on the north side of the Ranch now, and this is the Skeffington House.
This was the home of the Baldwin Sisters in The Waltons.
But more importantly — I have found some real bricks!
The fake brick panels are often affixed with staple guns,
and between the bricks you can see the staples are rusted.
The most iconic feature of the Ranch is the fountain.
Built in 1937, it famously appeared in the TV series Friends,
and Hocus Pocus is one of hundreds of films in which it appeared.
This area is called Park Street, and in the background, we have the Boston Row facades.
In 2019 it was moved 3 blocks to a new location on Warner’s main backlot.
The good news is that you can now visit the fountain as part of the studio tour.
In the description below, you’ll find links to more fascinating history
of the Warner Brothers Ranch.
Thanks for watching!