The Trenton Family Home from “Cujo”

Cujo is regularly hailed as one of the best cult horror movies of all time.  I never actually saw the 1983 flick until just prior to writing this post, but I came across some information about the main house – or, more accurately, houses – used in it while researching filming locations in Sonoma County in preparation for my recent trip up north.  What I read fascinated me and I became obsessed with tracking the residences down.  Thanks to a major assist from my aunt Lea, who lives in the area, I was able to do so!

The article that piqued my interest was originally published by Fort Bragg Advocate-News in 1982 and was then reprinted by the newspaper as part of a “Glance at the Past” series in 2012.  According to the blurb, a façade based upon a real life home in Santa Rosa was constructed around a mansion in Mendocino for the Cujo shoot.  As you can imagine, this information had me practically foaming at the mouth (see what I did there?) to locate both properties.

I headed right on over to Netflix to scan through Cujo and fairly quickly discerned that the façade referenced in the newspaper article was built to represent the sprawling home where the Trenton family – Donna (Dee Wallace), Vic (Daniel Hugh Kelly), and their son, Tad (Danny Pintauro, in his first movie role) – lived in the flick.  Yes, as shocking as it may seem, the dwelling pictured below is not real, but a false front constructed around an actual residence!

My first move was to track down the Mendocino property where the façade was built.  Fort Bragg Advocate-News had referenced the home as the “Mullner Mansion” and noted that it overlooked Mendocino Bay.  A Google search of “Mullner Mansion” and “Mendocino” did not yield as much as I had expected in the way of information, but it did kick back a PDF of a pamphlet published by the Mendocino Coast Chamber of Commerce titled Mendocino Coast & Beyond.  The pamphlet contained a four-page section on films made in the area and Cujo was one of the movies detailed.  In it, the Mullner Mansion was said to be located on Crestwood Drive.  Thank you, Chamber of Commerce!

I immediately opened up Google Street View and was thankful to see that Crestwood Drive was a short road with only a few residences situated on it.  After lining up the houses visible across the street from the Trenton home in Cujo (those houses are pictured below via Street View), I quickly discerned that the façade was constructed around the property located at 44777 Crestwood Drive.

A view of the real home (via Google Street View) as compared to the Cujo façade is pictured below.

I was thrilled to see that the fencing visible in Cujo is still intact today, more than three decades after filming took place!

I was also thrilled to spot what I believe is the top of the actual home’s turret in a shot.  You can check out some additional photos of the real life dwelling here.

Next up, I was desperate to locate the property that the façade was based upon, which is also where interiors were filmed.  That hunt proved easier said than done.  As noted in the Fort Bragg Advocate-News article, the Santa Rosa pad was known as the “Nielson Mansion.”  A Google search of “Nielson Mansion” and “Santa Rosa” yielded nothing, though.  At what seemed to be a dead end, I called for reinforcements!  My aunt Lea lives in the Santa Rosa area and I asked if she wouldn’t mind going to her local library to search through some 1980s phone books to see if there was a listing for a Nielson family.  She did me one better and called the library to inquire if they had any information on Cujo filming in the area.  A very nice woman ended up returning Lea’s call and provided her with a wealth of info!  As it turns out, Fort Bragg Advocate-News made an error in their reporting.  The librarian explained to my aunt that filming had actually taken place at the Nielsen (not Nielson) Mansion located at 3415 Nielsen Road.  The 1933 dwelling was named for Mrs. Francis Nielsen, who lived on the premises until her death in 1980.

While the librarian was not sure if the home was still standing, Lea ran right out to stalk the place for me and reported back that it was, indeed, still intact.  I then headed over to stalk it for myself during my trip up north earlier this month.  Unfortunately, as you can see below, the residence is gated and not much is visible from the road.

Though some portions of it can be seen through the fencing.

Thankfully, aerial views provide us with much better imagery.  As you can see below, the property is an exact match to the Trenton home from Cujo.

In real life, the pad boasts 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, 4,438 square feet of living space, a 2.03-acre lot, and a 600-square-foot attached garage.

As mentioned in the Fort Bragg Advocate-News article, most scenes involving the interior of the Trenton home were shot at the property.

The story behind the Trenton house begs the question, if producers liked the look of the Nielsen Mansion exterior (not to mention the interior) that much, then why not just film at the home?  Why did they instead go to all of the trouble of building an exact replica of the place around another residence in a different city?  My guess is that they wanted to make use of the fabulous views the Mullner Mansion had to offer.  But yikes, it sure does seem like a heck of a lot of effort to go to just to showcase a pretty view.  Either way, I cannot imagine how cool it must have been for the Nielsen family.  I would absolutely love it if an exact replica of the exterior of my home was re-created in another location for a movie shoot!

A big THANK YOU to my aunt Lea for tracking down this location for me! 

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The façade of the Trenton family home from Cujo was built at 44777 Crestwood Drive in Mendocino.  The façade was modeled after the Nielsen Mansion located at 3415 Nielsen Road in Santa Rosa, where interiors were also filmed.

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