TV and Movie Homes: Where Are They Now?

Producers chose the split-level home at 11222 Dilling Street in North Hollywood for Mike Brady and his family because it looked like the sort of place an architect and family man would call home. The house’s longtime owner (who moved in while The Brady Bunch was on the air in the early 70s) built an iron fence around her lot to prevent fans from crowding in to peep through her windows for a look at the Bradys’ home — which would be tough to do under any circumstances, since the interiors were shot in a studio. The home in that famous exterior scene is a split-level building, not a two-story one, and the window on the left side of its face was a fake. If the now-elderly owner does decide to move, she stands to make quite a profit on her $61,000 purchase: 11222 Dilling Street is now valued at around $1.7 million.

The magnificent Los Angeles mansion Billy Wilder’s filmmaking team rented for Gloria Swanson’s faded silent-film star character already had a pedigree: It had been built in the 20s by "mysterious buccaneer-businessman" W.O. Jenkins and belonged to industrialist J. Paul Getty. Alas, the swimming pool Paramount built on the property for the movie’s iconic opening sequence wasn’t long for this world. Seven years after Sunset Boulevard wrapped in 1950 — and just two years after the residence took another star turn in Rebel Without a Cause — the home at 641 South Irving Boulevard was demolished and replaced with unremarkable office buildings.

Stars Hollow, the Connecticut town Amy Sherman-Palladino dreamed up for her fast-talking mother-daughter duo and their community after an inspirational New England vacation, is both real and imaginary: The Gilmore Girls pilot was shot on location in Unionville, Ontario, and when the series was greenlit, "Stars Hollow" was recreated on a Warner Brothers lot. The bad news? Even the most rabid fan can’t save up to live like a Gilmore girl — in fact, much of the town sets was repurposed for ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars in 2010. The good news? Since their home itself is part of the Warner Brothers studio tour, you can walk on through the Gilmores’ front door without having to sweet-talk your way past a publicity-weary owner.

Fans of 1983’s A Christmas Story can don rabbit pajamas and relive Ralphie’s tribulations in the Cleveland home made famous in the movie, thanks to fellow enthusiast and entrepreneur Brian Jones. Jones purchased the property with profits from Red Rider Leg Lamp Company (which manufactures replicas of the leg lamp Ralphie’s dad received as a "major award" in the movie), then studied the film frame by frame and reconfigured the building as a near-replica of the set. By day it’s available for tours, and by night the private third floor is available for overnight stays beginning at $295 — though December 2018 is already nearly sold out.