A look inside some of the most famous TV houses of all time

The best TV houses are like members of the cast.

Over the years of watching a show with a distinctive, evocative house or apartment in it, you develop the same kind of warm (or depending on the show, chilling) memories and feelings you have grow in your own home. That’s the kitchen where Adam Scott kissed Reese Witherspoon in Big Little Lies, or that’s the living room where Monica proposed to Chandler! Nawww.

A great TV house is aspirational, usually flasher and better decorated that any real life equivalent would be – Hello, Carrie Bradshaw, I’m looking at you and your artfully messy walk-in wardrobe. We’d love to take a good old nose around them, peek in the cupboards and behind the couches.

So let’s do that… sort of, anyway. Here’s a short list of some of the best TV houses:

Monica Gellar’s purple NYC palace

There’s only one way to start a list of the best TV houses and that’s with Monica’s purple apartment from 1990s sitcom touchstone, Friends.

The scene of so many of the show’s most beloved moments (Brad Pitt’s cameo?), that distinctive colour was a deliberate attempt by set designer John Schaffner to make the home memorable… As if it wasn’t memorable enough that a mediocre chef in New York could afford a giant two-bed apartment with a balcony. True, the home had once been Monica and Ross’ Nana’s, which suggests it was seriously rent controlled.

Full and Fuller House, San Francisco

The three storey, Victorian/Queen Anne villa in one of the Bay City’s most coveted neighbourhoods was almost the sixth character in 1990s sitcom Full House. A grand dame with her frothy white scrollwork, eaves and pillars, and brilliant scarlet door, she represented the cosy comfortability that underpinned the whacky goings on at the Tanner household.

The show’s creator bought the house in 2016 when Fuller House, a sequel to the original show, was green lit. He returned the home to its Full House glory and it was used for exterior shots until the show was cancelled in 2019, when it was put on the market. Sitting in the heart of San Francisco’s Pacific Heights district, the house is is likely to fetch significantly more than the US$4.5 million (AUD$6.6m) Franklin paid for it in 2016.

To the manor born

Speaking of significant houses that feel like living breathing members of the casts that inhabit them, Highclere Castle, known to fans as Downton Abbey, is surely the grandest home on any Best TV Homes list.

Brady met a lovely lady

According to The Brady Bunch, the distinctive house in Studio City, California was designed by Mr Brady for his sprawling blended family. When the real house went on sale in 2018, fans of the show were worried – would it be torn down or God forbid, be modernised?

They needn’t have fretted. It was bought by HGTV to be part of a reno show that will return the Brady home to it’s Mid-Century glory. And the Bradys will be doing the work…

Live Big Little Lies

You can spend a week pretending to be Reese Witherspoon in Big Little Lies – just without the murder and cover up – by renting her gorgeous home from the show. It’s only US$3000 – $5000 (AUD$4429 – $7382) a night!

Sing like a Soprano

See Tony Soprano’s house from the street and you can almost imagine James Gandolfini walking down the long sweeping drive in a terry towel bathrobe to get the post – it’s been unchanged since the award winning series. It went on sale in June 2019 for a whopping US$3.4 million (AUD$5.02m), which its then owner called a “starting price”.

It might be worth it. The home sits on 1.5 acres, in New Jersey, just a hop skip and a subway ride from New York, has its own facebook page, and is still buzzing with all the Big Mob Energy. On the downside, strangers in terry towel robes randomly appearing on your driveway for the rest of time.

Black gold, Texas tea

Move over Downton, here’s a US property that’ll give your crennels a run for their money – lots and lots of money. The house used in the first season of The Beverly Hillbillies, that classic fish-out-of-water show from the 1960s, went on the market in June for the bargain price of US$195 million (AUD$287m).

For that price you get 11 bedrooms, 18 bathrooms home, a five bedroom guest house, a 23 metre swimming pool, a pool house, tennis court, 2,000 bottle wine cellar, a garaged big enough for 40 cars and house fit for Ellie-May Clampet.

Springfield’s favourite family home

It’s got four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a huge yard, an attached garage and a family-friendly kitchen diner, The Simpsons want for nothing in their home. That didn’t stop reno site Angie’s List commissioning seven international interior designers to give 742 Evergreen Terrace an up-to-date decor do-over using 2019’s hottest decor trends.

The Memphis Design style do over of Bart’s bedroom was divine, as was Lisa’s biophilia room. But they gave the pink, teal and blue bathroom a Scandinavian update that was so bland compared to the kitsch, Mid-century vibe of the original, we did not approve.

Ikea style

Want a living room like The Simpsons, or Joyce from Stranger Things, or Monica from Friends? Ikea feel you. In June they released guides to recreating these iconic sets from the three shows using their catalogues. It’s nice to know if you need to communicate with a loved one trapped in the Upside Down, Ikea’s Solvinden lights are available – black paint not included.

• This story originally appeared on stuff.co.nz