When conjuring up 2001’s “The Royal Tenenbaums,” Wes Anderson had the Orson Welles picture “The Magnificent Ambersons” on his mind. One day, while looking for locations, especially a house “where you’d have a real strong sense of family history,” he and his team happened upon a Harlem mansion that was “Ambersons”-esque, and as he further told the Observer, that the home possessed a sort of storybook quality.” It was once inhabited by Charles H. Tuttle, a New York civic leader, and his family.
The house had recently been bought in foreclosure by Willie Woods, and Anderson persuaded Woods to hold off on renovating the place and revealed to Vulture that “the amount that we ended up paying him to use it. He got the house, ultimately, at no cost.” In “The Royal Tenenbaums,” 339 Convent Avenue became 111 Archer Avenue, home to a dysfunctional family of bookish society types. Location Manager Tom Whelan said the house was “almost a character in the movie-it’s like half of the movie,” and Anderson, who had a lot of the interiors pre-drawn up in his mind, took advantage of every inch of the place, including the rooftop.
The Flemish Revival mansion has six bedrooms and the same number of gas-operated fireplaces, over 50 windows, and recently was available for rent, to house all your teepees, board games, and Adidas tracksuits.
