Summers Residence
| Summers Residence | |
|---|---|
| Buffy the Vampire Slayer location | |
| Created by | Joss Whedon |
| Type | House |
| Notable characters |
Joyce Summers Buffy Summers Dawn Summers |
The Summers Residence, located at 1630 Revello Drive in the fictional city of Sunnydale, California, is the home of Buffy Summers and her family in the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
History
Buffy Summers and her mother, Joyce, moved to 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, California, from Los Angeles, following Buffy’s expulsion from Hemery High School for having burned down the school’s gymnasium in a fight against local vampires. Buffy’s friends, Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg, were frequent visitors to the Summers' home, as was Buffy’s fellow slayer, Faith Lehane, and Buffy's boyfriend, the vampire Angel. Classmate Cordelia Chase also occasionally visited, as did Buffy's Watcher, Rupert Giles.
In season five, Buffy’s sister Dawn Summers joined Buffy and her mother as a resident in the house. After Joyce’s death, the house's occupants included (at various times) Willow and Tara, Xander, Giles, ex-demon Anya Jenkins, Amy Madison (while in rat form and briefly afterwards) reformed vampire Spike, reformed villain Andrew Wells, and several Potential Slayers. The house was their headquarters in the war against the First Evil and its henchmen.
Throughout the series, the residence was one of the chief sets for the television series. The set was last seen in the series finale "Chosen", and it possibly slid in the crater when the hellmouth was destroyed.
Behind the scenes
The actual house that was used for exterior shots of Buffy’s fictional residence is an occupied house on a narrow, tree-lined suburban street in Torrance, California — three blocks north of Torrance High School, which doubled as Sunnydale High School. It was also used for some interior scenes during season one.[1] However, according to Marti Noxon in a DVD commentary, after the explosion scene from the season three finale "Graduation Day" woke up residents, broke windows, and set off car alarms, the town of Torrance refused to allow the Buffy crew to film there again. As a result, exterior shots of the front of the house were rarely used again.
Beginning in season seven the house began functioning as the main headquarters for the Scooby Gang, and as a result became the most heavily filmed-in location and the location to feature the most exposition writing, leading it to become the most hated of the Buffy sets by the crew for that year.[2]
Footnotes
- ↑ The easiest way to determine whether the interior scenes are on the set or in the actual house is to look at the bend in the stairs: in the actual house, the bend is rounded, while the bend on the set is a 90-degree angle.
- ↑ "Lessons" DVD Commentary - Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Seven Box Set, disc one