The Fall of the House of Usher may be a Gothic horror-drama based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe, but it’s also a compilation of luxury home tours. Through real homes and built sets, the Netflix series showcases a suburban mansion, a loft apartment, a renovated brownstone, and more homes that capture each owner’s distinct personality. Production designer Laurin Kelsey and her team were challenged with creating a breadth of high-end accommodations for the high-stakes world and, of course, the abandoned, rotting home at the center of the tale.
The series—from Mike Flanagan, the creator of The Haunting of Hill House—follows siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher who built a pharmaceutical empire and acquired immense wealth and power. When the heirs to their dynasty, Roderick’s six children and only grandchild, start dying at the hands of a mysterious woman from their past, their biggest, darkest secret is eventually revealed. “It was challenging to figure out where the differences would be,” Kelsey tells House Beautiful of the characters’ residences throughout the series. “They’re all wealthy. They all live in the same city. So what’s different?”
The series isn’t strongly tied to one setting. “We decided amongst ourselves that it was very much New York, and if anything, a little touch of Chicago or another East Coast, large city,” Kelsey says, noting that filming took place in Vancouver, Canada. “But we tried to stay away from specifics.”
Building each character’s world began with a single color that Flanagan assigned to lead their storylines: red for Perry, blue for Frederick, orange for Vic, silver for Camille, green for Tamerlane, yellow for Leo, purple for Madeline, and gold for Roderick. For the homes and sets, Kelsey leaned into subtlety so that colored lighting could saturate the spaces when necessary and the costumes could pack a punch. From Camille’s sterile, futuristic interiors in a white-and-gray color palette to Leo’s bachelor pad with warm exposed brick and gold and beige accents, their colors are present but not overpowering.
Among the real locations featured in the series are Roderick’s mansion, a home that exists in Vancouver’s Delta neighborhood. With a front yard water fountain and porte cochère at the entrance, the exterior establishes a grand atmosphere. Some of the interiors were also tapped for their heavy feel courtesy of dark wood tones, intricate molding, a massive fireplace, and high ceilings.
Similarly, Freddie’s Greek Revival-style mansion is portrayed by a 16,000-square-foot property in West Vancouver—and yes, it does really have an open-concept kitchen with a bowling alley right next to it. There’s also an indoor fire pit, a two-story high wine cellar, and a giant column fish tank. “I think it was on the market for something like $30 million when we shot there,” Kelsey says.
Million Dollar Listing New York star Ryan Serhant actually gave a tour of the home through a YouTube vlog circa 2019, noting it was $35 million at the time. In 2022, the home was reportedly priced at just under $23 million.
Other home interiors and exteriors came to life on stage because of complex death scenes and stunts. “We had five stages going for almost a year, constantly building,” Kelsey says.
These settings, from the warehouse rave to Tamerlane’s Upper East Side-inspired apartment covered in mirrors, was dreamt up at Bridge Studios and Vancouver Film Studios. The exterior facade of Roderick’s childhood home along with the facades of six or seven other homes and Longfellow’s home were built specifically for the show. The team enlisted actual street pavers to put down asphalt to create the neighborhood.
The House of Usher itself was designed to be small with Gothic-leaning architecture. Inside, it’s a “hodgepodge of time periods—1890s with a little touch of 1930s, ’40s, and then a new filter of the ’50s on it,” Kelsey says. “I didn’t feel as tied to a specific period representation.”
A standout feature is the custom wallpaper, which ties back to Roderick and Madeline’s colors and eventual fate. “That wallpaper is big lilac flowers with a bit of gold and yellow around it,” Kelsey says. “It’s this optimistic, blooming flower that then rots.”
Literary-minded viewers should also keep an eye out for nods to Edgar Allen Poe’s other works that were woven into the set and graphic design. From stained glass in the New Year’s Eve bar to a license with the address number 1849 on it (the year Poe died), the series is full of can’t-miss details to round out the visual real estate and interior design feast.
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Associate Editor
Kelly Allen is the current Associate Editor at House Beautiful, where she covers design, pop culture, and travel for digital and the print magazine. She’s been with the team for nearly three years, attending industry events and covering a range of topics. When she’s not watching every new TV show and movie, she’s browsing vintage home stores, admiring hotel interiors, and wandering around New York City. She previously worked for Delish and Cosmopolitan. Follow her on Instagram.
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