I knew I would love Little Fires Everywhere long before it premiered. One look at the trailer had me drooling! A confounding mystery at its center, Reese Witherspoon at the helm, a setting that is almost a character, and two of my favorite cuties, Joshua Jackson and Geoff Stults, in lead roles. What’s not to like? (Though I have to say I really could have done without seeing Jackson in those tighty-whities in episode 1. That’s an image I’ll never be able to get rid of!) The fact that the new Hulu series is lensed in Los Angeles is just the cherry on top! I was fortuitously given intel on several of its locales late last year, months before its March 18th debut. So I, of course, did some major LFE stalking while I was in L.A. in January for my dad’s many pre-surgical doctor appointments. One of the spots I hit up was the massive brick estate belonging to Mark McCullough (Stults) and his wife, Linda (Rosemarie DeWitt).
[ad]
Though set in the real-life town of Shaker Heights, Ohio, the McCullough pad can actually be found at 120 South June Street in Hancock Park. It is just a few blocks away from the series’ central locale, the Richardson residence, an oft-shot dwelling at 511 South Muirfield Road that is most famous for having portrayed the Tate mansion on the 1970s television series Soap.
The two properties bear an uncanny resemblance to each other, as you can see below – so much so that I am surprised they were both chosen for use on the series. Shaker Heights is repeatedly noted as being “the first planned community in America” on Little Fires Everywhere (in reality, it’s just one of the first), so I guess it somewhat makes sense that two residences would be similar. But from what I’ve seen online of the real town, while all the homes are stately and handsome and quite a few are even Tudor in style, they seem to have fairly distinct looks. So I definitely find the utilization of two such similar spots odd.
The McCullough house initially pops up in the third episode of Little Fires Everywhere, titled “Seventy Cents.” In it, Linda and Mark throw their adoptive daughter, Mirabelle, a first birthday party, which winds up going horribly wrong when (spoiler alert!) her birth mother unexpectedly appears at their door.
The residence is also featured in episode 4, “The Spider Web,” though as was the case in “Seventy Cents,” we only see a very tight shot of it.
Even when Linda is hounded by news crews outside of the house in the episode, we aren’t shown much other than the driveway.
It is a pretty fabulous pad, so it is surprising that we have yet to get a full shot of it.
In real life, the 1927 residence boasts 6 bedrooms, 8 baths, 2 stories, a whopping 6,177 square feet of living space, 2 fireplaces, a 0.40-acre plot of land, a tennis court, a pool, a hot tub, and a detached 3-car garage with what looks to be an in-law unit above it.
As shown in the police report detailing the birthday party fiasco, which Elena Richardson (Witherspoon) reads in “The Spider Web,” the McCullough’s house is said to be at 120 Brighton Road, so the property’s real life address number is being utilized on the series.
I am fairly certain that the actual interior of the home is also being used.
For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Mark and Linda McCullough’s house from Little Fires Everywhere is located at 120 South June Street in Hancock Park. Melanie Cave’s (Elizabeth Perkins) home from Truth Be Told is just up the road at 509 North June Street. And the Richardson residence from Little Fires Everywhere (aka the Tate mansion from Soap) can be found a few streets over at 511 South Muirfield Road.