I think Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick are two of the greatest television producers ever to walk the face of the earth. Oddly though, while I am obsessed with both My So-Called Life and Relativity (as evidenced here and here), I was never a fan of thirtysomething, one of their earliest forays into the small screen. The 1987 series’ failure to resonate was likely due to its focus on parenting – the subject matter was just a little too adult being that I was ten when the show debuted. I did stalk the large Craftsman home belonging to Hope Murdoch Steadman (Mel Harris) and her husband, Michael (Ken Olin), on it upon first moving to Southern California almost twenty years ago, though. I never got around to blogging about the place, but while recently listening to My So-Called Podcast (a My So-Called Life re-cap show hosted by the creators of fave podcast True Crime Obsessed), I started thinking about the property and figured not only was it high time I dedicate a post to it, but to also give the series it starred on another chance.
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Open up any Pinterest board of famous houses and the Steadman residence will inevitably be pictured. The pad is also documented in pretty much every single Hollywood tour book ever written, is talked about regularly in the comments sections of filming location blogs (especially over at Hooked on Houses), and will definitely go down in the annals of history as one of the best-loved TV homes. Oddly though, the exterior of the dwelling was rarely featured on thirtysomething. I scanned through dozens upon dozens of episodes to make screen captures for this post and only came across a few instances of it being shown. I guess Herskovitz and Zwick weren’t big fans of establishing shots in their early days.
Said to be at 1700 Bryn Mawr Avenue in Philadelphia on the series, the home can actually be found at 1710 Bushnell Avenue in South Pasadena.
As chronicled in a 1997 People magazine article titled “That’s My House!”, homeowners Dennis and Donna Potts were first approached about the use of their residence on the series via a location scout who knocked on their door in the summer of 1987. The couple wound up being paid $1,500 for each day of filming that occurred on the premises during the show’s four-year run. I would consider that a heck of lot of money today, but back in the late ‘80s? Dang! According to People, production designer Brandy Alexander keyed in on the property because of its age, saying “We wanted an older house so we could have the characters do renovations.”
The home was utilized solely for exterior sequences on thirtysomething. The interior of the Steadman residence was nothing more than a set (a roofless one, at that) built inside of a soundstage at CBS Studio Center (then called CBS/MTM Studios) in Studio City. Per a 1996 New York Times article, the set was based upon the real life interior of two different Pasadena-area Craftsmen – one of which, I came to discover, is definitely the Bushnell house. As you can see in this image of the property’s built-in buffet, it matches what was shown onscreen perfectly.
The dining room is also a pretty direct match, as you can see in this photo as compared to the screen capture below. You can check out some additional images of the actual inside of the Bushnell house here.
Interestingly, audiences considered the set a bit too upper-crust for the middle-class Steadmans, which proved to be an ongoing source of consternation for thirtysomething producers. As author Elisabeth Bumiller states in the New York Times article from 1996, “Even though the creators let the set deteriorate, making the house look dirtier and more lived in, few people bought it.” Herskovitz extrapolates, “No matter what we did, people thought it was a rich, expensive house.” Considering the property’s wood detailing and plethora of built-ins and the fact that Zillow currently pegs its value at $2.23 million, I’m going to have to side with the fans on this one.
In real life, the 1902 pad boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,760 square feet, a fireplace, stained glass windows, original detailing, a detached garage, a covered patio, 0.17 acres of land, and a garden.
The same property also appeared in the 1990 comedy Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael as the residence of Denton (Jeff Daniels) and Barbara Webb (Joan McMurtrey).
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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Stalk It: Hope and Michael Steadman’s house from thirtysomething is located at 1710 Bushnell Avenue in South Pasadena. Elliot (Timothy Busfield) and Nancy Weston’s (Patricia Wettig) pad from the series is one street over at 1700 Fletcher Avenue. Countless other famous homes are located on Bushnell. The Hopper residence from Ghost Dad is at 1621 Bushnell. Joan’s dwelling from the movie is next door at 1615. The Lambda Epsilon Omega fraternity house from Old School is at 1803 Bushnell. The property located at 1727 Bushnell played both Scott Howard’s (Michael J. Fox) house in Teen Wolf and Lorraine Baines’ (Lea Thompson) 1955 home in Back to the Future. George McFly’s (Crispin Glover) 1955 residence from Back to the Future can be found at 1711 Bushnell, while Biff Tannen’s (Thomas F. Wilson) from Back to the Future Part II is at 1809.
That’s really interesting! I have the pilot as well as all of the other episodes. That was a great house.
Actually, the pilot episode was filmed in a different home, near USC. 2636 Kenwood Avenue, to be exact. They also showed that exterior in this first episode, which was filmed in Feb/March of 1987. I was a USC student sharing the home with several other guys. The owner was the late Randy Fuhrman, a caterer to celebrities. We were placed in a hotel for several weeks. My room was the “baby’s nursery” in the pilot – totally repainted, then returned to its original condition.
They actually copied the interior of that first Kenwood home, when they built the set for the series. With one minor alteration (to the stairs), it matches exactly. So, the studio interior was based on the home interior utilized for the pilot, which was filmed as a practical set. (Pilots don’t always “sell,” so they delay set-building until the series gets the go-ahead.)
My favorite story about filming…we had not yet been relocated to a hotel, when the main actors started rehearsing at the Kenwood Avenue home. One morning, I woke up late, and headed to the bathroom in my boxers. I heard talking, turned around, and saw the four leads sitting in a circle on the master bedroom floor, going over lines. I paused, waved my hand and said, “hey.” The responded in unison. Luckily, they had closed the door upon my return. One underwear walk of shame was enough.
I eventually worked as a location manager for film/TV/commercials in Texas. I tracked down a lot of locations on IMDb, before they did away with the comments sections. It’s fun to take a tiny detail, then Google like crazy, and actually find the spot!!