Yahoo News You Can Visit the Real-Life House Behind "Little Women"
There’s no denying the enduring appeal of the story presented in Little Women—and that story includes the historic house museum where it was written, set, and which was replicated inside and out for Director Greta Gerwig’s version of the classic coming of age book, which is currently up for six Academy Award nominations. The novelist behind Little Women, Louisa May Alcott, lived at Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, from 1858 to 1877, along with her three sisters, Anna, Elizabeth, and Abigail—inspiration for the sisters in the book.
House Beautiful spoke to the Executive Director of the Orchard House Museum, Jan Turnquist, who shared that both the exterior and interior of the home were reproduced “nearly exactly” for the 2019 film adaptation. The replica house was located “on a massive estate" in Concord, the same town where the original structure is situated. Essentailly, it was as close as Gerwig could get to the real home.
"Orchard House proper could not be utilized for filming as we are in a compact residential neighborhood on a heavily trafficked commuter route which would not have allowed for three months of filming,” said Turnquist. Additionally, “the rooms are furnished with actual belongings of the Alcott family and would be endangered by the many cameras, lights and people needed for filming." The duplicated version of Orchard House was dismantled in late 2018, after filming was complete.
The duplicate home was the result of a great deal of research and consultation. "Greta Gerwig and her team made multiple visits to Orchard House and studied it intensely," says Turnquist. Production Designer Jess Gonchor also visited a total of 10 times to take measurements and photographs as well as consult with Turnquist's team to ensure that the reproduction of the Alcott family home was as accurate as possible.
The biggest differences between the original home and its replica? Other than the addition of the decorative gingerbread shingling on the movie house, the largest distinction is size. "The rooms in the film were made larger to be able to accommodate cast, crew, and production equipment," Turnquist explains.
There are differences in the landscape, too: "The landscape of Orchard House in the film was flat with less foliage where as the actual Orchard House has a ridge behind it and Mr. Alcott had a series of pathways and terraced steps leading to many gardens, vegetable plots, and fruit trees that he cultivated on the 12 acres of property, along with whimsically innovative landscape features such as rustic fences, trellises, and a summerhouse (aka gazebo)."
There have been four Academy Award-nominated film adaptations of Little Women—in 1933, 1949, 1994, and 2019—which have garnered a grand total of 14 Oscar nominations and two wins, featuring stars like Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh, Winona Ryder, Cristian Bale, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Saoirse Ronan, Laura Dern, Emma Watson, and Timothée Chalamet, amongst others. (We'll have to wait and see if the latest Little Women receives any Oscars next month.)
The latest adaptation of Little Women is the only one to have filmed exclusively in Massachusetts. For the 1933 adaptation, though, Turnquist reveals, "Katharine Hepburn came to visit Orchard House in the winter, and posed for a wonderful shot as Jo March building a snowman in [the] front yard."
Orchard House owes its restored state largely to Alcott's father, Amos Bronson Alcott, who, Turnquist says, "paid no attention to his friends and associates [who] believed the house was 'fit for nothing but pigs' and ready for demolition." Upon the Alcott’s purchase of the home, the property included a 12-acre apple orchard (hence the name Orchard House) bejeweled with 40 apple trees. It took the Alcotts 22 moves to land on this home, and it may have something to do with the fact that Amos "believed that apples were amongst the greatest fruits," Turnquist says.
The historic home was opened to the public in 1912, and was later restored thanks to a $400,000 grant awarded by Save America’s Treasures, which then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton created as a public-private initiative to ensure the preservation and protection of “historic structures, collections, works of art, maps, and journals that document and illuminate the history and culture of the United States."
As for the home's interiors, most of the furniture present today belonged to the Alcotts, and at the very least, all of the decor is true to the time period of the mid-1800s. Every room of Orchard House resembles its original state when Alcott and her family lived there for nearly twenty years, over a century ago. Upon visiting the famed house, expect to see family portraits, watercolor paintings by the youngest daughter, Abigail May Alcott (who later went by May), and their mother’s family china, which features the letter M, for her maiden name, May.
The Alcotts had strong literary connections besides Louisa may, too: They sold their first Concord home—known as The Wayside—to none other than Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter. The Alcotts rented space at his home while Orchard House underwent renovations and the Hawthornes lived in England. Ralph Waldo Emerson lived less than half a mile away in his home, Bush, which also exists as a house museum today. The Alcotts were also friends with Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Julia Ward Howe, all of whom contributed to Louisa May Alcott’s writings and education. Her father, Amos, was a member of the Transcendental Club, along with Emerson and Thoreau.
Suffice it to say, Orchard House is a worthwhile destination for design and literature fans alike. Can't visit? Take the virtual tour here.
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