I love celebrating Halloween and I love celebrating with fictional witches. I have hats, brooms, spell books, potion bottles and so on, all of which I use to decorate for All Hallows Eve. Where does this obsession with witches come from you may ask? Well, in short, it came from my love of the t.v. series Bewitched, one of my all time favorite shows while growing up in the 60' and 70's. Suburban housewife Samantha Stephens tries to maintain a so called "normal life", but with the wacky cast of characters barging in with all types of crazy spells, goof-ups and trickery, every episode was truly a joyful half hour diversion for any child!
You can only imagine my excitement when Columbia Pictures released their 2005 movie version of Bewitched. Of course I ran to see it with my sister Kim who is even a bigger fan of the show than I am. We liked the film, it was fun and quirky with a great cast, but what we loved even more was Isabel Bigalow's charming cottage home! So I decided to write a post to compare these two delightful homes.
Remember the exterior of the Stephen's home?
(Note...Although the series home was referred to as being somewhere in either Connecticut or New York state, I never remember seeing any snow and winter scenes seemed to be reserved for only the Christmas episodes.)
And here is Miss Bigalow's abode which is set in the Hollywood area of California.
I adored the open floor plan of the Stephen's home, with the large living and dining spaces that flowed together along with that fabulous center room staircase. However the decor of the living room, entry way and dining area did go through several changes over the years in the Stephen's home. One thing that stayed the same was the brick wall surrounding the fireplace.
Bewitched, the series, ran from 1964 to 1972.
Below is the 1964 living room.
Here it is a few years later. Notice the brick behind Endora is no longer white and book shelves have replaced the built in decorative shelves.
In the early 70's the Stephen's living room went through yet another transformation with new furnishings and a third new look for that brick fireplace.
Kristen Chenoweth greets Isabel with a gift basket filled with Bewitched t.v. series paraphernalia...the basket was accidentally delivered to Kristen's character Maria, Isabelle's next door neighbor.
Isabel is a young witch who no longer desires a life with magic and decides to move out on her own in order to find true happiness in the mortal world. Below is her living room. Notice the set designers have a white brick fireplace. Now this one is just stunning.
Enter Aunt Clara!!!
I love this sweet little sofa love seat...it's just darling!!!
Now let's take a look at the kitchens. Samantha certainly has some state of the art appliances.
As a child I loved the fact that Samantha always had flower pots on her window sill.
But again by the 70's the kitchen took on some new cabinets, wallpaper and where the heck did the spiral staircase come from?
"Calling Dr. Bombay. Dr. Bombay come right away!!!"
(Note...during my research I did find out that in the spring of 1970, one of the sound stages at Columbia Pictures Studio caught fire and portions of the Bewitched sets were damaged, most notably the kitchen. So while the cast and crew were filming the Salem Saga on location, the kitchen was redesigned and rebuilt!)
Now lets take a look at Isabel's dreamy kitchen. I am so loving those gorgeous archways and that chandy!
How about that wall of doors and windows which lead out to the patio?
The bedroom is up next! Remember those old headboards with the book storage? Mr. Rosemary Lane threw his out right before we got married...I wonder if it belonged to the show's set at one point?
And the 70's once again saw updated decor...much more streamlined wouldn't you say?
Isabel's bedroom...cozy!
Darrin and Samantha enjoying a lovely meal out on their back patio...this must have been during the pre Tabitha days.
Enter Aunt Clara...this time she fell through the roof of the gazebo.
Now let's take a look at Isabelle's gorgeous back patio.
Here are a few interesting things about some of the original Bewitched cast that I discovered while poking around the Internet. Agnes Moorehead died 2 years after the last season of Bewitched aired. She was 74. Sixteen years later Moorehead 's mother passed away...she was 106. David White who played Larry Tate Darrin's boss, was on the show from it's first season to last. He passed in 1990, just two years after his son John was killed in the explosion of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbee Scotland.
And just 3 years before Elizabeth Montgomery died, she did this her last interview with John Tesh. Click here.
I hope you enjoyed this little comparison of the Bewitched homes. No matter the home one thing is evident, both are definitely charming and completely magical in their own right!
XO
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