The Braverman Family Homes on “Parenthood”

by HOOKEDONHOUSES on APRIL 24, 2011

To tell you the truth, the only reason I tuned in to see “Parenthood” at first was because of Lauren Graham. As a huge “Gilmore Girls” fan, I was just excited to see her on TV again. But as soon as I got a look at the houses that these families live in, I was hooked for a whole other reason.

The drama, which is a remake/update of the 1989 Steve Martin movie, follows the extended Braverman family in Berkeley, California, headed up by parents Zeek and Camille. Let’s start by taking a look at the house they live in.

Zeek & Camille’s House

Set decorator Julieann Getman says, “Zeek and Camille have lived in this house for 30 years, filled it with heirlooms and haven’t redecorated much. It’s well worn and comfortable.”

Peter Krause and Lauren Graham, who play brother and sister on the show, are reportedly datingin real life.

I’m crazy about the windows in their house.

Many heart-to-hearts take place in their kitchen around the big, butcher-block island:

Craig T. Nelson plays Zeek Braverman (and it really bugs me that it isn’t spelled Zeke). He was reportedly offered the role of Jay on “Modern Family,” but chose to do “Parenthood” instead.

Bonnie Bedelia plays the family matriarch, Camille. A lot of us remember her as Holly McClane in Die Hard.

The paneled kitchen cabinets are painted “Calke Green” (Farrow & Ball), and the walls are Benjamin Moore’s Rockport Gray.

The family gathers around the big dining room table:

I get excited whenever there’s a scene that takes place on their big screened porch. Love it!

Julia and Joel’s House:

Zeek and Camille’s daughter Julia (Erika Christensen) is a successful attorney who lives in a more contemporary home with her stay-at-home husband Joel and their cutie-pie daughter Sydney.

“We wanted to reflect her taste in art and Midcentury Modernism and her ability to purchase it,” Getman says.

I love the little red kitchen set in front of the island for Sydney to play with:

Crosby’s Boat:

Crosby, played by Dax Shepherd, totally blew it with his girlfriend–and the mother of his son–this season. To try to win her back, he sold the cool boat he was living on and bought a fixer-upper in a family-friendly neighborhood. We’ll see if his plan works! I’m looking forward to seeing what he does with the house, so I hope they keep going with that storyline if the series is picked up for another season (I think its renewal is still up in the air).

Adam and Kristina’s Craftsman:

Adam (Peter Krause) and Kristina (Monica Potter) Braverman live in a house that’s reportedly based on a real Craftsman in Pasadena.

“Their style is Pottery Barn, right off the shelf,” set decorator Getman says.

The foyer:

Living Room:

Looking from the entry down the hall into the kitchen:

In the season finale (spoiler alert!!), Adam lost his job and found out his wife was pregnant with their third child on the same day.

The kitchen is painted in Benjamin Moore’s Saybrook Sage. The black and white-checkered floor is fun. I had a checkered floor in my first kitchen and there’s something about it that makes a kitchen feel homey and cheerful.

Their teenage daughter Haddie is played by Sarah Ramos. She’s supposed to be 16 on the show and is 20 in real life but always looks much older than that to me. I don’t know if it’s her haircut or what, but I never buy her as a teenager.

Apparently she played the role of a girl named Patty Pryor on “American Dreams” when she was younger, so you may recognize her from that show.

The sofa and chaise sectional in the family area of the great room were custom made for the set:

Getman says she strives for realism rather than perfection when decorating sets: “It’s much more what people can truly afford as opposed to what they see in magazines.”

A set photo looking from the kitchen into the dining and family room areas:

The display cabinet in the dining room reminds me of one from Crate & Barrel that I like–wonder if it’s the same one (Rojo Cabinet, $999)?

Adam and Kristina’s bedroom is painted Van Courtland Blue from the Benjamin Moore Historical Collection. The headboard and bench were custom made. The rug, nightstands and dresser are from Pottery Barn.

Are you a fan of the show, rooting for its renewal like I am? Did the season finale make you cry? (I’ll admit I was reaching for the tissues!) Do you have a favorite house (or boat) on the show?

More pics on CasaSugar and more set information in an LA Times article by David A. Keeps. Set photos via NBC/Universal. Thanks to Julian for help with this one!

Click Here to See More Houses I’ve Featured from TV Shows, Like “Gilmore Girls” and “Modern Family”!

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“Gilmore Girls:” Lorelai’s House & the Gilmore Mansion

by HOOKEDONHOUSES on MAY 23, 2010

Last week we took a look at the Dragonfly Inn and some of the other sets used on the popular TV show Gilmore Girls. Today we’re checking out Lorelai’s blue house with the wraparound front porch and the Gilmore mansion that she grew up in. Oh, and Richard and Emily’s pool house behind the mansion–we’ve got to take a peek inside it, too, while we’re at it!

I’m such a big “Gilmore Girls” geek that I own all 7 seasons on DVD, a book of essays about the show called Coffee at Luke’s, and the soundtrack on CD. I would move to Stars Hollow if I could! After last week’s GG post, I was happy to hear from so many of you that I’m not the only one.

The sets changed throughout the 7 seasons. The yellow wallpaper in the entry hall (above) was a new addition in the 6th season. Until then, it looked like this (below):

On the DVD Special Features we learn that the sets are connected in ways you wouldn’t expect. For example, you can step directly from Lorelai’s foyer into Sookie’s house through the “coat closet” door. Sookie’s set is right on the other side of that wall. (You can see photos of her house here.)

Looking into the kitchen:

Lorelai’s Living Room:

Melissa McCarthy (Sookie) gives us a look at the living room set in a behind-the-scenes tour:

She says the sofa in Lorelai’s living room was so uncomfortable, it was like sitting on a pile of bricks.

Lorelai’s Kitchen:

They spent a long time searching for the perfect actress to play Lorelai. Right before they started filming the pilot, Lauren Graham came in and they knew they had found her.

Unfortunately, Graham was on another show called “M.Y.O.B.” at the time (anyone remember that one?). If it was renewed for another season, they’d lose her. They took a chance and cast her anyway. It only lasted 5 episodes.

“This was definitely the most challenging job I’ve ever had,” Graham says, “just in terms of how much language I deal with.”

Creator and writer Amy Sherman-Palladino says that the fast pace of their show came with a price: “Whereas like a normal, hour-long script might be 55 pages, ours is 80, and we have to shoot 80 pages in the same amount of time.”

Graham now plays Sarah on the dramedy “Parenthood” (and yes, I will be doing a post about those sets, too). The gossip mags say she’s currently dating Peter Krause, who plays her brother on the show.

Scott Patterson, who played Lorelai’s on-again, off-again boyfriend Luke Danes (shown below), has been cast in a new TV series called “The Event” that was recently picked up by NBC.

Photos of the kitchen set from the behind-the-scenes tour:

Rory’s Room:

Rory’s bedroom is off the kitchen, which I always found odd. The second story of the house looks plenty big enough for more than one bedroom. Why wouldn’t she have one up there with her mom? Does Rory have to go up there to use the bathroom? We never see one on the first floor.

UPDATE: Readers tell me they do remember seeing a bathroom on the first floor.

Lorelai’s Bedroom:

Lorelai’s Bedroom after the renovation (with Luke’s family furniture in it, which she wasn’t crazy about):

The Front Porch:

The front porch set, seen in the special features on the DVD, where close-ups were filmed:

The house in winter (taken from the episode when Luke created an ice-skating rink for Lorelai in her front yard–loved that one!):

How the house looked after Luke’s renovation:

Richard & Emily Gilmore’s House:

This is where Lorelai grew up, and where she and her daughter Rory now go every week for Friday Night Dinners. I think the only time they showed this exterior shot was in the pilot (it was the only one I could find, anyway). From then on we only see the front door close up and it appears to be on a soundstage.

The dinners are actually terms of a deal that Richard and Emily made with them. They paid for Rory’s private school tuition at Chilton, and then for Yale. All they asked was that Lorelai and Rory–who had been practically estranged from them for years–come to dinner once a week.

The pilot episode was shot in a real house in the suburbs outside Toronto. The interiors were recreated on a soundstage after the show was picked up.

You can see some great photos of Unionville, Ontario, the “real Stars Hollow,” here, which shows the church from the opening credits and the hardware store they used for Luke’s Diner early on.

Sherman-Palladino calls Emily Gilmore “The only voice of reality on the show.” I found that very interesting considering how abrasive and difficult her character is! Not sure I want that to be the voice of my reality. Ha.

Kelly Bishop, who played Emily so brilliantly, is a Tony-award winning actress and dancer who is reportedly nothing like her character on this show. She herself has said, “I wouldn’t be friends with Emily in real life. She’s so opinionated and status quo–definitely not my kind of woman.”

She also played Jennifer Grey’s mother Marjorie in Dirty Dancing.

Emily decorated a room in the house just for Rory:

Richard Gilmore was played by Edward Herrman. In his study (below) hangs a painting that Emily commissioned of Rory reading a book:

The producers made a decision to show how static and stiff life inside the Gilmore mansion was by keeping the camera in place for most of the scenes inside it. When the characters are in Stars Hollow, however, the camera moves around a lot to reflect the energy of the town and the lack of formality that goes along with Lorelai and Rory’s lives there.

The back patio, where Emily hosted her DAR meetings:

The Pool House Behind the Gilmore Mansion

We first saw Richard and Emily’s pool house when they were having marital problems and Richard moved into it. It was fairly dark and masculine-looking then.

In Season 6, when Rory lost her mind (she was arrested for joyriding in a yacht with her boyfriend, dropped out of Yale, and stopped speaking to her mother), she moved into the pool house for awhile. Emily went all out in redecorating it for her.

Matt Czuchry played Rory’s handsome, charming, and filthy rich boyfriendLogan Huntzberger. You may recall that she dumped him at the end of the final season after he asked her to marry him. She decided to pursue her career in journalism instead.

NOTE: I have been corrected. She did not dump him. She just refused his offer of marriage, and he dumped her in response.

Czuchry now plays Cary Agos on the popular new drama “The Good Wife.”Every time he pops up in one of the promos for it, I point and shout, “Logan!” My husband finds it a little unnerving, but I can’t seem to help myself.

Rory’s Bedroom:

She had a yellow upholstered headboard and grasscloth wallpaper with horizontal stripes. Everything was feminine and fun.

The Pool House Kitchen:

I love the yellow and white tile in the kitchen:

If you missed my first post about “Gilmore Girls,” which includes photos of the Dragonfly Inn, Independence Inn, Luke’s Diner and other buildings in Stars Hollow,click here.

If you could live in any of the houses from the show, which one would it be?

Visit my TV/Movie Houses page for links to the others I’ve featured, fromFunny Farm to Gossip Girl.

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“Gilmore Girls:” Dragonfly Inn and Scenes from Stars Hollow

The Braverman Family Homes on “Parenthood”

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