The March Family Home
The March family home in
'Little Women' by Louisa May Alcott was inspired by the real Alcott family
home, Orchard House, which still exists today, as a historic house museum in
Concord, Massachusetts. The author moved more than 20 times throughout her
life, living both in the bustling city of Boston and on a remote utopian
commune in the town of Harvard. The house was even recreated for the film
adaptation of the novel, directed by Greta Gerwig.
Jay Gatsby's Mansion
F. Scott Fitzgerald, in 'The
Great Gatsby' calls the property a “colossal affair” that “was a factual imitation
of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new
under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty
acres of lawn and garden.” Historians believe that the demolished Beacon Towers
mansion in Sands Point, Long Island, was the inspiration for Gatsby’s home. In
fact, when the novel was turned into a movie in 2013, set designers drew
inspiration from a 1928 Colonial-style castle in Long Island, New York.
Interestingly, the 14,551-square-foot house went on sale for $85 million in
2017.
Mr. Rochester's Thornfield Hall
Thornfield Hall is a fictional
location in the 1847 novel 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Brontë. It is the home of
the male romantic lead, Edward Fairfax Rochester, where much of the action
takes place. An isolated mansion of unspecified size, the house has a number of
apparently unused rooms that become important to the narrative during the
Bertha Mason episodes. Haddon Hall, an English country house on the River Wye
near Bakewell, Derbyshire, has been used to depict Thornfield on several
occasions.
The Woodhouse's Hartfield
Estate
Hartfield is an estate featured
in 'Emma' by Jane Austen. It is owned by the Woodhouse family and is located
near the village of Highbury, and is also relatively close to London. Hartfield
is part of “Highbury, the large and populous village, almost amounting to a
town, to which Hartfield, in spite of its separate lawn, and shrubberies, and
name, did really belong, afforded her no equals.”
Hill House
'The Haunting of Hill House' by
Shirley Jackson centers on the ghost-filled because the story revolves around
it. Hill House is said to have been inspired by the Winchester Mystery House, a
Victorian mansion in San Jose, California, that has its own supernatural
stories. The former owner of this home, Sarah Winchester, was the widow of William
Wirt Winchester, who built his fortune through his firearm company. It’s
believed that the Winchester Mystery House is haunted by the spirits of those
who lost their lives because of the Winchester rifle!