Movie Real Estate: Gotta Have…that kitchen!

From Something’s Gotta Give….

 I watched this movie with a friend and have to say, I didn’t see the movie: I saw the house. My heart quickened, I actually felt it skip a beat, when I saw the set.

The pallette, the colors, the general aesthetic: all things I love. I missed Jack completely (not that I fell into his target demographic) – and fell for the house. Loved the bright, beachy artwork throughout, the choice in fabrics – everything. Check out that Swedish grandfather clock along the wall!

Apparently, they shipped 3,000 books from New York’s Strand Book Store to fill the home – to reflect that a writer or lover of books lived there. It’s these facts that remind me “no one really lives like this,” which is (I believe) the same as “no man or woman really has perfect abs.” Same thing. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from pining over the set design.

The Living Room

For Something’s Gotta Give, director Nancy Meyers asked set decorator Beth Rubino to create a substantial Hamptons house for Diane Keaton, who plays a substantial Manhattan playwright whose daughter is having an affair with Jack Nicholson—until chest pains turn his heart up-side down in more ways than one. Forced to recuperate in the guest room of his girlfriend’s mother’s beach retreat, Nicholson finds that his unexpected infirmary is as big a player as those who inhabit it.

“The house had to reflect Diane’s character, who is a very successful, accomplished New York playwright in her mid-50s,” says Meyers. She is also a divorcée, following a 20-year marriage, who built her Hamptons house as “a gift to herself—no compromises—just her total vision of a peaceful life. Naturally, it’s a different mind-set than that of a woman who has been single or is part of a couple. There was no chance, for instance,” she chuckles, “that she was going to put a double sink in the bathroom.” Nor, for that matter, include an office. “The desk in her bedroom signifies she’s romantically shut down, in a stage of life where nothing’s going to be going on in the bedroom, so why not have a desk?” Complete article: Architectual Digest

The 2003 comedy “Something’s Gotta Give” starred Oscar-winning legends Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson. But for lots of moviegoers, the most memorable role was played by the house, especially its big, light-filled kitchen.

Another take on this theme….

The airy, shingled Hamptons beach house is walled with windows and built-in bookcases. The rooms are open, the furniture slipcovered and the walls and fabrics awash in creamy blues, whites and tans. The kitchen gleams with white glass-front cabinets, vintage hardware, a commercial-style range and dark soapstone counters. Complete Articla: Washington Post

Production Design by Jon Hutman/Set Decoration by Beth Rubino

 

Saving a seat for you,

Christine