Bravo's Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce isn't just a great show — it is our dream life! OK, so maybe not the horrible marriage-ending drama, or the career sabotage, but we absolutely want to live in all these gorgeous spaces! Abby, played by Lisa Edelstein has one of the coolest houses we've ever seen, and her ultra-stylish friends are NOT messing around design-wise either. That's all thanks to production designer Jerry Fleming, whom we chatted up for secrets from the set, and how you might be able to steal some of this style for your own...
The set for Abby's house is based on a real house in Vancouver, a 2004 design by the Canadian architectural firm Dialog. "The first episode, some of it was shot in the real house and some of it was shot on set," Fleming reveals. "We made changes that worked for us when we designed the set. The pool is smaller. And we took out a lot of beams and posts that got in our way."
Writer Marti Noxon specifically called for a "David Hockney-style glass house in the Hollywood Hills." Explains Fleming, "It's a symbol of being exposed. You get these great views but people an also see inside. So it's a symbol of her personal family life drama being exposed to the people around her." The backdrop outside the huge sliding windows is a view of Studio City from the Hollywood Hills.
Abby's house features a two-story atrium-style entryway with a suspended staircase. "I loved the stairway," says Fleming. "Any time you can do a stairway, it really feels less like a set. There's a mezzanine and steps up to the bedroom doors and it helps you have that flow."
The living room features an authentic Hans Wegner Papa Bear Chair and ottoman, a locally made version of Theo Ruth's Penguin Chair, an Achille Catiglioni Arco floor lamp and a modern version of Eero Saarinen's Womb chair. The orange pouf is $79 at CB2. And other pieces were pulled from Design Within Reach, and Vancouver stores InForm and Fullhouse.
"We always try to mix and match so it's not too predictable," says Fleming. "We have iconic mid-century modern pieces, but we also have modern current pieces as well."
The house has green Brazilian granite countertops and a pivoting front door made from Brazilian cherry wood.
Abby's house will go through some changes because of their posessions being divided in the divorce—but stay mostly in tact. "In a later episode," Fleming reveals, "the episode starts with Abby and Jake [Paul Adelstein] putting Post-Its on different pieces of furniture. For that episode, we brought in more furniture. So that episode, it's funny, the house has more furniture and then it kind of goes away because it was all rentals." Fleming also reveals that "things start happening to the house." In one of the later episodes, "there's a ghost story and the house takes on its own storyline." We can't wait.
Lyla's (Janeane Garofalo) house is more "designer" than Abby's, Fleming reveals. "She may have told them what to do, but she had people doing it for her. It's very structured and we wanted her to feel like she was in the flats of Beverly Hills."
"We wanted Lyla's house to look very different from Abby's," adds Fleming. "It's contemporary, they're friends, in the same circle. But on the more on the designer side. More structure, more mouldings. Classic lines."
And we'll be seeing plenty of it.
"There are a lot of colors going on but they're a variation on a theme--cool blues and greens," explains Fleming.
"And then we like to have pops of the yellows and the greens. The flowers would often be our pop of color and each week we would bring in fresh flowers."
"The kids' school is based on The Center for Early Education in Los Angeles," says Fleming. "Our set, in Vancouver, was a shut-down, huge, Nokia office building. But then in the lobby, we brought in paneled maple walls, and it was two stories so we hung up blow-up globes. We suspended those as a collage in the upper level and that was always a challenge to keep them inflated, so there are fewer as the series goes on!"
Girlfriends Guide to Divorce airs Tuesdays at 10 pm on Bravo.
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