Ink-and-paint brick-and-mortar in the flesh and blood!
The Simpsons house (Henderson, Nevada)
In the mid-’90s, a group of video game designers at Fox Interactive teamed-up with an architect to construct a replica of the Simpsons’ home. The 2,200-square-foot house was completed in 1997 and it originally contained many features and decorations in order to make it look exactly like the one on The Simpsons—albeit in three dimensions. There was even a sailboat painting over the couch, and corncob curtains in the kitchen window, and some Duff Beers in the fridge.
The house, placed in a quiet neighborhood in a suburb of Las Vegas, was later given away in a contest, but the winner opted for a $75,000 cash prize instead of the house. More than 30,000 people visited the house in 1997 (including Simpsons creator Matt Groening who signed one of the walls with purple paint), but neighbors weren’t too pleased with all the tourist traffic. The house was repainted and most of the details related to the show were removed before it was sold in 2001.
The Flintstones house (Malibu, California)
On a 23-acre spread overlooking the Pacific Ocean sits this modest, one-bedroom, two-bathroom house made out of composite materials that look like stone. In fact, it looks exactly like the house Fred and Wilma lived in on The Flintstones. While it looks like it’s from the Stone Age (or at least the TV cartoon version of the Stone Age), the kitchen is modern, and unfortunately doesn’t have a sarcastic boar for a garbage disposal or a woolly mammoth for a faucet. Show business entrepreneur Dick Clark, bought the house in 1989, and never lived in it, but put it up for sale shortly before his death in 2012 for $3.5 million. No takers—it’s still for sale.
The Up houses (California, Utah)
To date, two real-life reproductions of the famous balloon-powered floating home from Pixar’s Up have been built. In March 2011, a crew working for the National Geographic Channel constructed a lightweight version in the high desert east of Los Angeles for a segment on the show “How Hard Can It Be?” to see if it was actually possible to lift a house with balloons. They successfully managed to send it airborne after attaching the roof to 300 helium-filled weather balloons. The house flew for over an hour.
A more detailed, and stationary, Up house can be found at 13215 S. 5390 West in Herriman, Utah. In addition to looking just like the one in the movie, there’s even a mailbox out front stamped with the names and handprints of Carl and Ellie, just like in the movie. The four-bedroom, 2,800-square-foot house was originally intended to serve as a tourist attraction, but the builders sold it to two self-described “Pixar fanatics” for $400,000.
