Welcome to Top10Archive!
We remember them like our own childhood homes - abodes that we grew up exploring within
our favorite television programs.
From black and white classics to more modern hovels, we are taking a trip down memory lane
with these 10 most memorable TV homes!
10.
Mister Rogers’ Digs (Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood) Sadly, the soothing voice of Mister Fred Rogers
was taken from us in 2003, but we still have memories of him traipsing through his home.
Okay, so it may not have actually been his home, but the television studio in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania was our place of comfort for around 900 episodes.
To ensure the line between reality and television wasn’t blurred for his viewers, Mister Rogers
even gave his youthful watchers a look behind-the-scenes, occasionally showing how the set was built
and how the puppets were used.
We’ll never forget the warm, welcoming feel of Rogers’ abode, the miniature trolley,
or the mystical “Neighborhood of Make-Believe” that all brought the studio home to life.
9.
The Cosby House (The Cosby Show) Bill Cosby’s legal troubles notwithstanding,
the beautiful New York Brownstone was home for the loving Huxtable family from 1984 to
1992.
Located at 10 Stigwood Avenue in Brooklyn Heights, the Huxtable house was, as you’d
expect, a television set in the Big Apple.
Studios in NBC’s Studio One and later Kaufman Astoria Studios brought the residence to life,
ensuring that the wealth earned by patriarch and matriarch Cliff and Claire Huxtable was
evident in the size and opulence of the home.
When the exterior of the home was needed, filming moved to Manhattan’s Greenwich Village
at 10 St. Lukes Place where a towering brownstone awaited for some Huxtable heartwarming moments.
8.
The Devereaux Ranch (The Golden Girls) The Golden Girls would have been the same
had the quartet of elder vixens taken up residence in a 2-room apartment.
The Miami, Florida residence, which was really a home in Brentwood, California and, later,
a façade in Walt Disney Hollywood Studios in California, which was removed in 2003,
was a spacious 4-bedroom ranch that we had the pleasure of seeing every inch of throughout
the series’ 7-season run.
If there are two rooms we’ll always remember, it’s the oversized living room, where many
of the show’s antics took place, and the very-80’s kitchen, where Blanch, Sophia,
Rose, and Dorothy spent hours upon hours feasting on ice cream, cheesecake, and cookies, spilling
their deepest secrets.
6151 Richmond Street will forever be a television icon, complete with its impossible layout,
where entrances and exits were illogically placed.
7.
The Clampett Residence (Beverly Hillbillies) As much as we loved our time in the oversized
mansion, getting a glimpse of the building’s exterior today is pretty impossible without
the wonders of television.
The façade of the Clampett estate was filmed at The Kirkeby Mansion in Bel-Air, California,
one of many impressive structures owned by hotelier and real estate investor Arnold Kirkeby.
Though the mansion still stands, it is hidden behind a series of gates and foliage, making
it impossible to see from the streets.
In March of 2016, the mansion had an estimated value of $18.1 million, which would have left
only $7 million for the Clampett family to live on.
The distinct features of the mansion’s interior were, unsurprisingly, a studio set on Stage
4 at General Service Studios.
6.
The Winslow Home (Family Matters) Jaleel White’s portrayal of nerdy thorn-in-the-side
Steve Urkel may have stolen the show, but thinking back to the days of hanging out with
the Winslow family, it’s difficult to forget the cozy home that set the stage for Family
Matters. 1516 West Wrightwood Ave in Chicago, Illinois served as the very distinct exterior
for the opening and closing credits and sporadic establishing shots during episodes.
The real 2-story abode certainly didn’t serve as the show’s interior setting, as
is evident with the live studio audience.
The crowded living room and the rest of the Winslow home were part of a set built at Warner
Brothers Studios in California.
5.
The Connor Abode (Roseanne) Roseanne Connor was far from the perfect mother,
so it only seems fitting that the Connor residence in the 1990’s sitcom Roseanne would also
be, in its own way, flawed.
What made the Connor house so memorable was not impressive décor or overly spacious rooms
– it was just how real it felt.
The disheveled living room decorated in trinkets; the kitchen that, for many episodes, was missing
modern conveniences like a dishwasher; the plain bedrooms that viewers got the occasional
look into – every inch of the Connor house felt like somewhere an average Joe would live.
Taped in front of a live audience, the interior was a set designed in the CBS Studio Center
in Los Angeles, California.
To establish the exterior of the Lanford, Illinois residence, a home at 619 S Runnymeade
Avenue in Evansville, Indiana was used.
4.
The Bundy Household (Married… with Children) Not too dissimilar from the Connor abode,
the Bundy house in Married with Children was nothing incredible.
Sure, it was spacious enough at 2-stories, but unremarkable furnishings and an odd choice
of fabric for Al’s treasure, the couch, ensured that viewers weren’t too envious
of where the Bundy’s lived.
Filmed in front of a live audience, as you probably recall, the façade of the home was
provided by a real residence at 641 Castlewood Lane in Deerfield, Illinois.
So, should you decide you want to try and sneak a peak of the former Bundy residence,
don’t go looking for 9764 Jeopardy Lane in Chicago.
3.
The Banks’ Estate (Fresh Prince of Bel Air) Now this is a story all about how his life
got flipped-turned upside down, and we’d like to take a minute, just sit right there,
we’ll tell you all about how a house in Brentwood served as the opulent façade of
the Fresh Prince after being moved from Philadelphia to Bel Air.
The grand structure we watched a youthful Will Smith roll up to at the start of every
episode is not actually a Bel-Air residence, but rather belongs to the equally affluent,
albeit slightly less hilly, neighborhood of Brentwood, California.
The oversized home was the perfect setting for the upper-crust Bank’s family, though
the interior was, of course, the work of many set designers that knew how to match a spacious,
grand interior with the already established exterior of the home.
2.
The Brady Hacienda (The Brady Bunch) What makes the Brady household such a memorable
place?
Was it the fact that six children shared one bathroom without blood being spilled every
morning?
Was it the iconic stairwell that provided an entrance for most scenes?
Or maybe it was the fact that the interior set, built at Stage 5 at Paramount Studios,
didn’t match up at all to the split-level abode at 11222 Dilling Street in North Hollywood,
California.
It appears the studio execs were so dead-set on finding a home with the right exterior
look and feel that they didn’t bother to ensure it would be a 2-story home like the
Brady house actually wound up being.
If you want to get a feeling of nostalgia every time you pull up to your home, it’s
going to cost you just around $1.7 million.
1.
The Fuller House (Full House / Fuller House) The home at 1709 Broderick Street in San Francisco,
California may look extremely familiar to you from the outside, but the moment you step
through the door, that familiarity will be washed away with contemporary décor and a
completely different layout than the one we’re used to at 1883 Girard Street.
Of course, the interior of the Tanner home was brought to life on a studio set, but the
dual-leveled home with that iconic red door needed an exterior to zoom into at the start
of every episode, and the Broderick Street resident, which hit the market in June 2016
for a cool $4.15 million, had that ideal look and feel for the Tanners.