The Amazing Story of the “Practical Magic” House
by Kim Michael
Copyright February 2015
For anyone who has ever seen the movie “Practical Magic” you know that the biggest star of the movie is not Sandra Bullock or Nicole Kidman–it is the Practical Magic “house”.
Having a fascination for such things I was interested in finding out where this house is, and if it can still be seen today. Actually, the movie was made back in 1998, so there have been quite a few years since the house was first filmed, and I suspected that it had probably been sold and was now privately owned.
What I found out however was, the house no longer exists. It was torn down years ago. But what most people (including myself) didn’t know is that the house was not actually a house, but rather, a movie set. It literally had no insides and was essentially an empty shell. The interiors were filmed on a sound stage in Hollywood. It was rumored that Barbra Streisand was interested in buying the house at one time, but in the end, the cost of building out the inside proved to be too much and it was eventually bulldozed to the ground.
But there is another side to the story of the Practical Magic house that is even more intriguing. When Griffen Dunne was brought in to direct the movie, he wanted to use a Victorian House on top of a hill, overlooking the ocean–but none could be found, so Stephen Alesch and Robin Standefer (a husband and wife set design team) were brought in to design and build the house–with a strange requirement. The house had to have a “woman” inspired theme to it; a house where only women lived; and if possible, the architecture had to be “woman” inspired.
Robin and Stephen’s first thoughts were of a victorian house with lavish, frilly, ornate facades…. but when Robin began doing research on the concept, she discovered something that neither she or Stephen expected….something that would change dramatically the concept of their house, and instill in their design a deeper meaning, that many people would sense, but not really understand.
It was a warm afternoon when they took their plans to the movie studio and spread them out for the production staff to see…. and the first reaction was one of confusion.
It was a victorian house alright, just as had been first envisioned, sitting on a hill top, overlooking the ocean, but with one signifiant difference… it was a lighthouse. If you look closely at the picture at the top of this page you can see it–the highest point on the roof is actually what’s called the “lantern room” of a lighthouse.
But why a lighthouse? Why would a “woman” inspired design be a lighthouse?
“Because”, Robin said, “In my research I found out that it was women, not men, who manned the lighthouses of the world for centuries.”
Literally hundreds of thousands of sailors owed their lives to the brave women who climbed the stairs, night after night, to light the light… the light that would lead the ships at sea safely home, even in the worst storms.
Who were these women? They were women who had lost husbands and sons, brothers and fathers, to an unforgiving sea….and had committed themselves to not let another life be taken….for lack of a light that could bring them safely home. They were, and are, some of the greatest unspoken heroes of our past.
And I tend to think that there are many women today, just like them, who maybe don’t have lighthouses, but day in and day out, climb the stairs and light the light; and for most, it is not important to them that the world know they are heroes. But it’s is important…that we know.