The stunning house design from Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

A few years ago I read the book Where’d You Go, Bernadette? It was a great read with lots of humor (just the way I like it) about an agoraphobic architect and mother named Bernadette Fox, who goes missing prior to a family trip to Antarctica.

The book was turned into a movie recently, featuring Cate Blanchett and some hot guy who played the dad (and who I’m about to Google for the purposes of….this blog post).

The movie was good (the book was better) but the best part of the movie was seeing the house that the family lived in. Bernadette is an ex-genius architect and moves her family into an old catholic school that she half-converts into their home and just…let me have pictures do the talking.

The house is half-finished in every room, but in that oddly beautiful stage of renovation where you can see half of the future vision, but imagine the other half in whatever way you want it to look.

This room below was my favorite.

I audibly gasped when it was shown in the movie. The painting on the wall is stunning. It’s also so cool to see because without the visual of the woman on the wall - the room would look a lot darker. Something about that bright woman painted in the center adds this light to the room that makes it brighter and almost even larger in a sense.

I’ve always loved pieces that feature large artwork of holy and goddess-like women. Back when I lived in Florida, I came across the below piece during a museum gallery/happy hour event.

Me and my parents with Bridget! Funny story, that night Bridget and I - two weeks out of graduating from college - stole 20+ glasses from the event (that you see on the table there) and stocked our apartment with them. It was the only glassware we had for a year haha.

I tried to look it up and see how much it was to purchase, or even just get a print of it - but I was a month out of college and way too poor to even think about buying art. Something about rich, jewel-tone colors and a drawing of a goddess-like woman…just…you can’t go wrong.

Moving on to the Great Room in the house. This room (below) wasn’t one that I would ever want to live in, but was still incredibly beautiful. The chairs, the cabinet…the way the wallpaper and the sconce compliment each other.

Even the tiny details like having the door frames painted dark - that’s something you rarely see, and it adds such a unique element to the room.

Now for a piece that I’d be curious to try - but probably too fearful of paper cuts to follow through with - the book staircase.

This was such a cool part in the movie. Lining the staircase were open books, with their pages displayed and fully extended, serving as a 3D piece of artwork that lined the stairs. It looks incredibly cool, but not too out there to try for yourself, you know?

Another unique feature was the confessional in their house. The movie mentioned briefly that the house was an old catholic school, or something of the sort - but keeping the confessionals in there as a very vintage-chic closet paid off in a super cool way.

I love seeing elements like that come together. I never really paid attention in church as a kid so I would just be looking around for most of the service. The idea of having a pew in your house, or a raised stage like they did for the alter, or even stained glass windows in certain rooms - I think it could all be really, really cool.

The confessionals are seen on the right.

Throughout the entire movie, every dilapidated room and half-renovated area just look so…perfect in their disarray. Especially the walls, like in this scene below - they’re dirty and stained but somehow they look Parisian and perfect.

The house is basically the perfect messy bun that takes like two hours for a hairstylist to get exactly right. Looking just messy enough.

So, if you want to see the coolest house of all time - or see that hot dad character be hot on screen - then I highly suggest Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

Also I just googled the dad and his name is Billy Crudup and he doesn’t look nearly as hot on Google images as he did in the movie - I swear. This is him in the movie. And he doesn’t even look hot in that photo. Was I on drugs or something when I watched this?

But what you have to know is that in the movie he’s some tech genius with lots of money and he also has the perfect wrinkles that happen when you smile, and then the wrinkles make it look like you have dimples. Do you know what I’m talking about? Ah, you have to watch the movie to get it.

Let me know if there are any movies you enjoy with great set design or architecture. I love watching these types of movies - especially during social isolation - because it gives you so much to daydream about afterwards.

Catch you for the next one,
S