Netflix movie to be filmed in Norwalk
NORWALK—The Lockwood Mathews Mansion has long been associated with its quintessential New England elegance and the various movies and shows filmed there over the decades. The mansion is now set to star in another movie.
While details and contracts are still being worked out, preventing the mansion or the city from sharing what movie will be filming at the mansion, Board of Trustees Chair Patsy Brescia confirmed the movie is a Netflix original film. Filming is expected to start next month.
“We are just in the middle of negotiating with the company, so we haven’t finalized anything,” Brescia said. “We are in the talking mode. We are trying to make it all happen. We are excited about it.”
The streaming company contacted the mansion about a month ago about filming in the house, with sights set on filming to begin in mid- to late- October, Bescia said. Work in the home will take about a month and run through Thanksgiving, she said.
Brescia said she hopes to have the contract finalized and the ability to share the name of the film set in the house by next week.
The Historical Commission, which heard a summary of the plans at Wednesday’s meeting, is the first in a series of approvals necessary before the set can move in, Brescia said. The mayor, Common Council, Historical Commission and museum administrators all need to approve the project before crews begin.
“We are in a crunch,” Brescia said. “We are trying to move as rapidly as possible. We have had multiple meetings with the producer and crews which have been codified now verbally in a proposed draft, that’s taken two or three weeks to get that.”
As far as how the museum was chosen by the production company as the set of the film, Brescia said the mansion is known in the television and movie world when directors are looking for lavish homes to use for set.
“They were looking for a substantial wealthy set to portray the main character in their film, so that is why the mansion was a perfect location,” Brescia said. “It’s a perfect venue for when you need something elegant and historic.”
Lockwood Mathews Mansion on West Avenue, a National Historic Landmark, has been in films as early as the 1970s, Brescia said.
The mansion has a history in Hollywood, with the 1975 horror film “The Stepford Wives” and its 2005 remake with Nicole Kidman and Bette Midler both filmed in Lockwood mansion, Brescia said.
The 1970 film “House of Dark Shadows” and a few other independent films and short films were set in the house over the years, according to the Internet Movie Database, also known as IMDb.
Norwalk has been home to various little and wellknown films, with another Netflix movie filmed in the city just earlier this year.
Netflix’s true crime movie, “The Good Nurse,” took to Norwalk and Stamford this spring. Starring Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain, the film began filming in Stamford in April, but the movie magic continued just up I-95 in Norwalk.
Sabrina Church, director of business development and tourism for the city of Norwalk, previously said in an email that Netflix began filming on private property in mid-May and then continued into June in the Mechanic Street lot, as well as in a few other locations in Norwalk.
Bob Vigulak, Jr., a real estate agent with Sotheby’s International Realty in Darien, said via email that he and his business partner Mike Spremulli, also a real estate agent with Sotheby’s, were approached by a location scout with Netflix. According to Spremulli, the scout was originally looking at another spot in Stamford for a space to film police department scenes, but he said his business partner suggested the area he knows best: Norwalk.
“Being a Norwalk native, Bob suggested looking into several Norwalk locations,” Spremulli said in an email. “It was his idea that led them to look at the location they ultimately decided on.”
Sections of the South Norwalk area were closed off and parking lots were used for housing the stars’ trailers at the time, real estate mogul and Wall Street property owner Jason Milligan said at the time.
Statewide there has been an increase in Hollywood headed to the suburbs for filming locations this year, likely due to the state’s proximity to New York City, director of Connecticut’s Office of Film, TV & Digital Media George Norfleet said.