Meg Ryan’s Brownstone in “You’ve Got Mail”

by HOOKEDONHOUSES on JUNE 28, 2009

Who could forget Meg Ryan’s charming brownstone from the 1998 film You’ve Got Mail? It was definitely one of the highlights of this romantic comedy for me, along with her character’s equally charming children’s bookstore. The movie reunited Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan five years after they first found love in Sleepless in Seattle.

In You’ve Got Mail, Ryan plays Kathleen Kelly, who runs The Shop Around the Corner. Hanks is her business rival Joe Fox, who runs the megastore Fox Books. Even though they’re both involved with someone else, they’re falling for each other anonymously, through daily e-mails.

Kathleen lives on the Upper West Side of NYC in a brownstone that the movie’s writer and director Nora Ephron says she believes was on West 89th Street, “But I could be wrong. Who remembers?”

During the opening credits, the camera pans up the brownstone and into Kathleen’s apartment:

I kept hoping for a better look into that bathroom she’s stepping out of, but this is pretty much all we see of it:

Greg Kinnear plays Kathleen’s boyfriend Frank. She watches him leave through the peephole to be sure he’s really gone before she checks her e-mail:

Watching to be sure he’s walking down the street. . .

And checking for messages from “NY152,” as Hanks calls himself online (she’s Shopgirl):

In the ’90s, when I was a new stay-at-home mom living out in the country and feeling very lonely and cut off from the world, my husband surprised me with an AOL e-mail account for Christmas. I got a kick out of seeing Meg Ryan checking her AOL e-mail. First are all of those noisy dial-up sounds that I had forgotten about. Then the little cartoon guy who looks like he’s running to fetch your messages. And the waiting and hoping that you’ll be told that you have mail.

In 1998, all of the e-mail talk and Starbucks visits in this movie seemed fresh and hip.

Her bedroom. I noticed that the furniture moves around a bit throughout the movie:

See? The bed is now angled off to the left:

The dining area, peeking into the kitchen:

With her boyfriend, played by the adorable Greg Kinnear:

In this shot you get a glimpse of the great woodwork in the hall, and the trim around the doors:

One of the few glimpses we get of her living room and sofa:

Look who I spotted behind the grocery store cash register — it’s Sara Ramirez, the actress who plays Dr. Callie Torres on Grey’s Anatomy! I looked it up on IMDb and sure enough, this was her first film role:

The Shop Around the Corner

“You’ve Got Mail” was a modern update of a 1940 romantic comedy called “The Shop Around the Corner,” starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. In the original, the shop was in Budapest and called Matuschek’s. Alfred (Stewart) and Klara (Margaret Sullavan) worked in the gift shop together and drove each other nuts, not realizing that they were actually secret pen pals who hoped to meet someday.

In a nod to the original, Meg’s independent bookstore was named The Shop Around the Corner:

Tom Hanks plays the owner of a new bookstore that has opened in the neighborhood called Fox Books. It’s one of those superstores that tends to put the independent ones out of business. Kathleen doesn’t know that’s who he is when he brings his father’s young children into the store one day. And he doesn’t know that Kathleen is the one he’s been e-mailing back and forth with for weeks.

The bookstore decorated for Christmas:

She can’t compete with Fox Books and soon goes out of business:

It still upsets me every time she has to close her shop. Do you ever secretly hope movies will end differently for once? Like, this time, she’ll find a way to keep it open?

Joe figures out that Kathleen is Shopgirl, and they manage to overcome all of the various plot complications–like how his store put hers out of business–to find love together in the end.

For more information:

• See the “cheese and antiques” shop that was used as the exterior for The Shop Around the corner, and read why it had to close in the NYT. (The interiors of the book shop were filmed on a soundstage.)
• See how the brownstone looks today here.
• Read more about the decorating at The Devine Home.

Visit my TV/Movie Houses page for links to all of the others I’ve featured so far, from Nights in Rodanthe to The Notebook.

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Meg Ryan’s Spanish-Style House in “Hanging Up”

Sam’s Houseboat in “Sleepless in Seattle”

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Diane Lane’s Italian Villa in “Under the Tuscan Sun”

by HOOKEDONHOUSES on AUGUST 16, 2009

Welcome to another Movie Monday, when I feature the houses from our favorite films. Under the Tuscan Sun, a movie (loosely) based on the memoir by Frances Mayes and starring Diane Lane, is a perfect “house movie.” After divorcing her cheating husband, Frances takes a trip to Italy, falls in love with an abandoned villa, and decides to buy it. As she restores the house, her life undergoes a kind of renovation of its own.

We get a glimpse of the home she shared with her husband as she’s packing up to leave:

Frances takes nothing but some boxes of her personal things and this blue vase. She pulls the flowers out of it and dumps the water on the floor before walking out:

Her best friend Patti is played by Sandra Oh of “Grey’s Anatomy.” In the movie, she’s in a relationship with Grace, played by Kate Walsh, who starred on “Grey’s Anatomy,” too, before getting her own spin off (“Private Practice”). In the movie, they’re expecting a baby together.

Because of the pregnancy, they give Frances Patti’s ticket to Italy, hoping that a vacation is just what she needs to get her life moving again.

While she’s there, Frances looks at the real estate listings that are posted (how many of us have done this on vacations, too?). She sees one she likes, for a villa called “Bramasole:”

Later, the tour bus pulls up next to the villa. She shouts, “Stop the bus!”

She steps inside and looks around:

It needs work, but Frances sees the potential in the old house:

She buys it on the spot, despite the pigeons that are living there (and one that was particularly rude to her when flying overhead):

After signing the papers, Frances tries to come to grips with the fact that she just bought the rundown villa:

She starts cleaning things up and taking inventory of all the things left behind, like bottles of wine:

And stacks of old newspapers:

She hires a team of Polish workers who don’t speak much English:

Frances says she wishes she had somebody to cook for. Then she realizes that she does have someone she can feed: her workers!

The workers set up a makeshift table for lunch:

The meals that she cooks for them are so good, they applaud. (I wish someone would applaud one of my meals around here–just once! I usually get comments like, “Why couldn’t we order pizza?” and “Pot roast again?!” But I digress.)

Her pregnant friend Patti (Sandra Oh) appears on her doorstep one day. Her girlfriend Grace (Kate Walsh) has left her, deciding she’s not ready for motherhood (this plot point was hard for me to buy, but whatever–it was a way to bring Patti back into Frances’s life). She moves into the villa’s blue bedroom:

Frances’s writing room:

Patti points out that there is steam coming up from the toilet, which probably indicates that there is something amiss:

A view of the living room, looking into the dining room:

The kitchen:

My apologies to Diane Lane for this horrible photo of her. I was concentrating on the kitchen in the background and not her face when I snapped it!

Patti dances with her new baby under the wisteria arbor:

The writer and director of the film, Audrey Wells, says that they didn’t actually change much of the house during filming to show the before and after. They just cleaned it up a little and “filmed it in warmer, prettier light,” she says, to make it look like the rooms had been renovated.

The front door:

Frances’s room (love her white dress):

Also love the church that Frances’s young friends get married in, so I had to snap a photo of it for you, too:

Frances hosts the wedding reception in her garden, where she meets an American writer played by David Sutcliffe (who coincidentally appeared in “Private Practice” with Kate Walsh–small acting world!).

You can see how much her terrace has been transformed since she bought it:

Frances steps out onto her balcony and we get a glimpse of the side of the house:

A close-up of Frances’s desk with her finished manuscript for Under the Tuscan Sun on it:

Who wouldn’t want to buy a villa here? Gorgeous!

A reader sent me a wonderful photo of the actual villa (thanks, Joanie!). She says, “We visited Cortona a few years ago and stayed at a hotel very near to Bramasole. The picture is from the car window, as I was trying to be nonchalant!”

Diane Lane has starred in several other movies that feature beautiful homes, too such asMust Love Dogs and Nights in Rodanthe. Which of her movie houses is your favorite?

Visit my TV/Movie Houses page for links to all the others I’ve featured so far, from Sabrina to You’ve Got Mail.

You might also like:

“Nights in Rodanthe:” A Romantic Inn on the Beach

Diane Lane’s Bungalow in “Must Love Dogs”

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