TBS Series, Indie Film Use Historic Mansion as Location
The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum, like many historic and picturesque locations on Long Island, is benefiting from the rising level of television and film production that uses regional locations as backdrops.
William K. Vanderbilt II’s 43-acre Eagle’s Nest waterfront estate and 24-room Spanish-Revival mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Photo by Erin Reyes
In the past few years, the Vanderbilt has been selected as a location for a television series, an independent mystery film, and major fashion and cosmetic shoots.
Lance Reinheimer, executive director of the Vanderbilt, said, “We’re excited that television and film directors, fashion magazines and cosmetics companies continue to discover the natural beauty, historic elegance and economic convenience of Long Island as a world-class backdrop within easy reach of New York City.
“We’re also pleased that William K. Vanderbilt II’s spectacular estate and mansion have distinctive architecture, a waterfront setting and a visual magic that can stand in for many places in the world.”
An independent film-production company used the mansion and estate grounds recently for scenes in its mystery-romance Nick and Nicky, based on the screwball comedies of the 1930’s. Actor Patrick Askin, who wrote the script and plays one of the lead characters, is also producing the movie, scheduled for release in 2017.
Askin joined Reinheimer and Diana Cherryholmes, director of the Suffolk County Office of Film and Cultural Affairs, at a recent reception in East Hampton, N.Y., hosted by the Suffolk County Film Commission during the 24th annual Hamptons International Film Festival.
In September, producers of a major television series for the TBS network shot scenes for several days in and around the Vanderbilt mansion. The grand house is the centerpiece of the museum complex and home to six of Mr. Vanderbilt’s natural-history, marine-life and cultural-artifact galleries, and wild animal-habitat dioramas. The episode will air in 2017.
Previously, Avon completed an extensive cosmetics shoot that included transforming the Spanish architecture of the mansion and courtyard into an outdoor Mediterranean restaurant and evening street scene. Harper’s Bazaar posed actress Kate Hudson against various evocative Vanderbilt backdrops for a magazine fashion shoot.
