Red carpets, a Swarovski Crystal-clad stage and that little golden statue we call Oscar — that’s the stuff Hollywood dreams are made of.
This year’s Oscar picks broke barriers, made history and told life-changing stories.
And of course, here at Inman, we couldn’t help but notice the fine settings many of these stories were told in. Whether they be homes, palaces or even boats, here’s a look at this year’s Oscar-worthy real estate.
Call Me by Your Name
Some argue that the “sexiest” thing about Call Me by Your Name is the real estate.
The 17th-century Italian “Perlman Villa,” with its salons, orchards, balconies, rustic swimming pool, five-acre private garden and Italian countryside charm is the perfect setting for this ‘80s love story to unfold.
As Quartzy reported, set designer, Violante Visconti di Modrone, adorned the 1,500-square-foot mansion’s 14 rooms with hand-picked antiques and period props. And in case you were wondering, there are also seven bathrooms and eight reception rooms.
The home comes with its own charms, including a 16th-century frescoed ceiling painted by Renaissance artist Aurelio Busso, a pupil of Raphael.
And for a cool $3 million, this piece of history, both cinematic and artistic, can be yours.
Dunkirk
Dunkirk has perhaps some of the most interesting and most surprising real estate in this post. For a little over $600,000, you can own the Xylonite, a vintage boat, chosen by film director Christopher Nolan for his epic WWII film about the evacuation of more than 300,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk in northern France, hence the title, in May of 1940.
As reported by The Irish Times, this cozy four-bedroom, 1,396-square-foot floating home — with excellent waterfront views — wasn’t actually used in the Dunkirk evacuation, but it was built in 1926 and retains many of its pre-war features, which is what attracted Nolan to it.
The beautiful vessel was used as a humble cargo ship for more than half a century before it was sold in 1977. It also had a life as a charter barge and sailing vessel for underprivileged children.
The current owner, who wishes to remain anonymous (but appeared with friends wearing period garb as extras in the film), bought it in 2011 and restored the interior full of polished paneling and brass and steel trims. It’s a fully rigged, motorized sailing boat.
Phantom Thread
There are two pieces of noteworthy real estate in Phantom Thread. Set in 1950s London, Reynolds Woodcock — renowned, short-tempered and obsessive fashion designer — has both a “wellies-and-duck-shooting affair in the country for when he gets in one of his moods,” according to Quartzy, and a London mansion worthy of his glamor.
Settled London’s 200-year-old Fitzroy Square, sits 10,403-square-feet of living space in a five-story manse with seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, eight reception rooms, a roof terrace, a country garden, adjoining mews and a two-car garage.
The perfect setting for a fabulous dressmaker to fall for a strong-willed woman both romantically and artistically — therein lies the plot of Phantom Thread.
The home is on the market for a little over $20.6 million, and apparently, Oscar-award-winning actor (not for this one though) Daniel Day-Lewis actually slept there himself.
Lady Bird
If you pre-gamed by watching ABC’s red carpet, you probably saw Greta Gerwig — the only woman nominated in the best director category — gush all over Sacramento and her former high school.
As it turns out, Lady Bird is a bit of art imitating life; it’s about a young female artist’s life — in, (where else?) Sacramento. Unfortunately, Lady Bird‘s cast and crew left empty-handed and snubbed, but Gerwig did make a buzz-worthy movie with more than a dash of her personality, though the award would have been nice.
For example, as Stitch reported, the picturesque blue house that embodies the main character’s dream home is actually a home Gerwig admired growing up near the Sacramento neighborhood. She convinced the current owners to let her use it for the film with her sheer love of the brick-and-mortar.
And the woman who inhabits the home in the film, also lives in the neighborhood in real life and was talked into the role by Gerwig herself.
This one’s not on the market currently, but the 2,588-square-foot, four-bedroom, two-bathroom home is estimated to be worth $1,351,035.
Darkest Hour
Darkest Hour tells the story of newly-appointed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s life as he decided whether to negotiate with Adolf Hitler or fight against seemingly insurmountable odds for all of Western Europe.
Some iconic London real estate, including 10 Downing Street, London’s Parliament building and the underground Churchill war rooms, was recreated in the film.
Set designers reimagined Yorkshire’s Wentworth Woodhouse as Buckingham Palace — the official royal London residence since 1837.
Iconic in its own right, Wentworth Woodhouse is rumored, according to the New York Times, to have inspired Jane Austen’s Pemberley estate in Pride and Prejudice.
The impressive 250,000-square-foot manor is composed of 365 rooms with 15,000 surrounding acres. It was sold to the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust last year for over $9.5 million, but it needs something like $55 million in renovations.
Get Out
Jordan Peele won best original screenplay and was nominated for best picture and best director for this horrific meet-the-parents story.
The home that is the backsplash for that head-scratcher of a first meeting, the creepy barbecue/auction and other horrors that would be spoiler-alerts to reveal, is located in Fairhope, Alabama. The deep southern antebellum-esque home has an undisclosed number of bedrooms and six bathrooms in its 4,292 square feet that sits on a 6.2 acre lot; it’s valued at $883,125.
And don’t worry about those creepy basement scenes; according to The Hollywood Reporter, those were filmed in abandoned schoolhouse and former Confederate hospital.
The Post
An old AT&T building in White Plains, New York, was transformed by The Post’s set designers to be the Washington Post’s offices of yesteryear. But the jaw-dropping bit of real estate was in the recreation of Katherine Grahm’s iconic Georgetown home, where Meryl Streep’s Graham hosts several occasions throughout the film.
What you see in the film is a studio recreation, but the actual Beall-Washington House is valued at $11,099,140 and was purchased after Graham’s death in 2001 for $8 million by venture capitalist Mark Ein.
According to Quartzy, the property is named after the Beall-Washington family, formed when George Washington’s grand-nephew married a relative of Scotsman Ninian Beall. It has nine bedrooms and seven bathrooms in its 6,956 square feet.
What’s your favorite cinematic piece of real estate? Please share in the comments section below.
