Hamilton house gives ‘Good Witch’ backdrop for its magic
Long-running show has made 19th-century home an attraction for fans
To some, it is a heritage house in Dundas, built around the time Dundas became a town in 1847 and two decades before Confederation.
But to the fans of the TV series “Good Witch” — called the Goodies by some — it is the home where magic is made.
The elegant home at 7 Overfield St. is called Foxbar House in real life, but in the popular Hallmark Channel TV series it is known as the Grey House and is the home of enchantress Cassandra “Cassie” Nightingale (Catherine Bell).
It has been that way through seven “Good Witch” movies and six seasons of the show. The series airs in Canada on the W Network, with previous episodes available to stream on STACKTV. The seventh season, which was set to film night shots at the house this month, is to premiere May 16, at least in the U.S.
Homeowner Liz Heersink said that, before the pandemic hit, she regularly had members of the Goodies drive up and knock on the door. The show does not film inside the home anymore — the interior has been recreated in a Toronto studio — but Heersink is accommodating to the fans and lets them come inside.
“They just want to see Grey House,” she said. “They’ve come from California, Chicago, Texas, Florida, Australia and a couple came from Italy. There’s been others. It’s just craziness. They really want to see the place. A couple of them have cried: ‘She walked on this floor.’ They get quite emotional.”
She said she gets a kick out of it all and there is a noble side to it. The money the film company pays to use the home is donated to the Good Shepherd Centre by Heersink.
The house was the scene of other productions before“Good Witch,” including a 2007 thriller called “They Come Back” and “Céline,” a 2008 CBC biopic about Céline Dion.
When the “Good Witch” people came calling for the first movie in 2007, Heersink had no idea it would develop into something beyond that.
“It was a one-off, but everybody liked it,” she recalled. “It became one of Hallmark’s most popular shows ever.”
“Good Witch” has been described as a gentle fable by one critic. Cassie inherits the rundown and haunted Grey House in the town of Middleton and moves in with her daughter, Grace (Bailee Madison, who left at the end of the fifth season). Cassie turns Grey House into a bed and breakfast and also runs a shop called Bell, Book and Candle (represented by a Dundas shop until a few years ago).
She develops friendships, most importantly with Dr. Sam Richard (“Desperate Housewives”
alum James Denton) and his son Nick (Rhys Matthew Bond, “Heartland”).
The fifth season saw Cassie and Sam tie the knot in a twopart episode called “The Forever Tree.” Last year, an episode focused on Grey House celebrating its 225th anniversary.
Heersink said the company usually shoots at the home in August for a Halloween special and then from October to December, but the pandemic threw that schedule off.
The crew can be there for a couple of days, but one time they were there for two weeks. They never shoot on weekends and they clean up any mess they create.
Heersink has met Bell and the other actors. Her greenhouse and laundry room serve as a place for the actors to wait before they are needed on the set.
“They are the loveliest people,” she said. “I think to make films that are family friendly, they have to be. They are so polite and so gracious.”
The show has shot scenes all over Hamilton, most notably Locke Street South. It has filmed at Dundurn Castle, Liuna Station, Westfield Heritage Village, the Scottish Rite Club, the Ancaster library, Pier 4 Park, Valens Conservation Area and Courtcliffe Park in Carlisle. The series also films in Cambridge.