Mia’s House from “Little Fires Everywhere”

Reese Witherspoon certainly is the darling of streaming TV!  First Big Little Lies (that’s HBO, but still), then The Morning Show, then Truth Be Told (which she executive-produced) and now Little Fires Everywhere.  The latter, which is currently airing on Hulu, is an adaptation of Celest Ng’s 2017 book of the same name.  Centering around two very different families living in the upscale town of Shaker Heights, Ohio (where Ng grew up), the series had me hooked from episode 1.  I only grew more obsessed when I learned that filming took place in L.A.!  The opulent home where Elena Richardson (Witherspoon) lives is a locale I was familiar with and recognized on sight – it’s the Tate mansion from Soap at 511 South Muirfield Road in Hancock Park.  But the charming duplex Elena rents to Mia Warren (Kerry Washington) in episode 1, “Spark,” said to be on Windsor Avenue, is a spot I had never seen before.  So I promptly began hunting it down.

An address number of 2008 was clearly visible next to the front door of the adorable property in several scenes.  And thanks to an Architectural Digest article I came across, I knew that Mia’s rental was somewhere in Pasadena.  I had an inkling it was actually in South Pasadena, which is often confused with Pasadena proper, so I began my hunt there.  The first result kicked back when I searched “2008,” “Street” and “South Pasadena” was a listing for a home at 2008 Fremont Street, which Google Street View showed me was not the right spot.  So I started popping the little yellow man over to the adjacent 2800 blocks and found Mia’s pad just 3 blocks over at 2008 La France Avenue.  Being that I had no plans to head to L.A. at any point (stay home, people!), I enlisted my friend Anne, of The Drewseum, who lives in the area, to stalk the place (at an appropriate social distance, of course) on my behalf, which she did the very next day!  Thank you, Anne!

In real life, Mia’s rental is a single-family home, not a duplex as depicted on Little Fires Everywhere.  The reason that producers chose a house to portray the multi-family dwelling was actually derived straight from the script.  As Elena explains to Mia upon first showing her the property, “Every house on Windsor has two families in it, even though it appears to only have one.  It was actually designed that way to avoid any stigma of renting instead of owning.”  On Little Fires Everywhere, Mia and her daughter, Pearl (Lexi Underwood), are said to live in the top unit.

Only the exterior of the house was used in the production.

The inside of Mia’s rental was a set.  As production designer Jessica Kender told Architectural Digest, “Mia is more transient, and her house has a warm feel as they travel only with their clothes and her art supplies.  The character found furnishings at the thrift shop and turned the sunroom into her art studio.  She found natural objects like branches [and] feathers, and hung a fishnet from floor to ceiling and her artwork on the painted accent walls.”  Kerry Washington also apparently had a hand in the design of Mia’s place.  Kender furthers, “Kerry did not want a lot of furniture in the bedroom as it would feel too permanent.  Her character’s space was a bed on the floor, a side table, and artwork above the bed.  She didn’t even want incidental chairs to show that [her character] was staying.”

Originally built in 1923, the 2-story traditional-style home boasts 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, 2,160 square feet, a fireplace, and a 0.17-acre lot.

The pad has curb appeal for days, so it is not at all hard to see how it wound up on a drama set in the idyllic community of Shaker Heights.

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Big THANK YOU to my friend Anne, of The Drewseum, for stalking this location on my behalf and taking the fabulous pictures that appear in this post! 

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Mia’s rental from Little Fires Everywhere is located at 2008 La France Avenue in South Pasadena.  The Simpson house from She’s Out of Control is one block north at 1960 La France.

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