Though this Victorian house looks as if it's been in place for a century,
it's actually an architectural shell. Even the blossoms on the trees are fake -
they're made of silk.

The aunt's house is every bit a main character in the movie....
"I analyzed the descriptions of the stairways and the tangle of vines
growing over the back door, and decided it had to be Victorian,"
she (Robin Standefer) explains. "But it couldn't look haunted.
It had to be clean and white, not fading and cobwebbed.
The aunts never really age. Their magic keeps them young.
What if they lived in a house that never really aged?

The design, based on East Coast shingle style, evolved
to include a lighthouse on top. "Women were traditionally
light keepers and this was a house of women," says Robin.

Above text from Victoria Magazine,
Casting a Decorative Spell,
October 1998

 

Just as important to the story of the Owens family is
their multigenerational home, prompting filmmakers to build it
rather than to look for an existing structure.

"The house is tailored to the action in the film," explains Di Novi.
"I don't think we could ever have found a house
that could have matched our needs."

Production designer Robin Standefer (who had previously collaborated
with Dunne on "Addicted to Love") labored for months researching
what would constitute the perfect house for a family of witches.
Once sketches were completed, it took an additional eight months
to bring her initial artist's conception to three-dimensional life.

Although the tale of the Owens women begins in the 1600s,
the story of "Practical Magic" spans three decades (from the 1970s
to present day), so the structure needed to be adaptable to the passing periods.
"By the very nature of the family, the aunts in particular,
there is a timelessness about the environment and about the house
that particularly interested me," explains Standefer. "I chose a Victorian style
for the house because it needed to be rambling. There are so many children
in the house, so many generations. You could almost move in a circular fashion
and get lost, finding yourself in different time periods. The design
really developed from there. I tried to find elements of design
that have stood the test of time. You couldn't be sure if things were
originally in the house in 1850 or they had been added to it in the Twenties.

The resulting structure stunned the author. "When I visited the set,"
remembers Hoffman, "it wasn't really like wandering into my own imagination;
it was like wandering into another person's interpretation of my imaginary world.
I was thrilled that it was so beautifully rendered; it gave me a sense of drifting
through this magical world, but it was all so real."

Standefer sees the house as being a very real character in the story.
"The house itself has a certain magic to it. There is a whole world in this house
and garden. These women are outcasts and this place is their sanctuary;
it almost feels as though all the emotion of the generations
is caught up in its walls."

Above text from the Practical Magic production notes