Yet there were drawbacks. The building proposed many challenges for the filmmakers: it was small and unstable, and the floors were connected by one rickety staircase, which didn't even go to the roof; the roof was accessible only by ladder.
There was talk of returning to the plan of shooting in a studio.
"Wherever this guy goes, he finds horrible places to work," Murray jokingly notes. "On 'Rushmore,' we were in some of the most horrible locations outside Houston. And now, we were in New York City, the biggest and best city in the country, and he found some of the most awful places to shoot in. So nothing's that much different. Except that now he gets carried to the set in a chair."
But Anderson remained adamant that they film in a real house: "The house contains the whole family history, and I wanted it to be as real and present as it could be. We didn't have any time to rehearse this movie, so to help the actors with their parts, I wanted them to see the house their characters grew up in, and be able to walk through it. They wouldn't have that sense of history if we had filmed on a soundstage."
In the end, the Hamilton Heights house and each of its floors, all of its rooms, its rooftop garden and its exterior became the film's primary location. The few missing elements, a kitchen, Etheline's study, and the ballroom, were found in nearby homes or buildings.
"On many projects, we get the initial talk and then we kind of just all go off on our own, says Wasco. "But Wes has a strong visual sense and a strong color sense that helps the camera, costume, and art department work together. He's the one who is able to hold everything together."
Each room was painstakingly decorated to give a sense of character. For Etheline's study (as well as the archeological dig), the heads of the Society of Archeology in New York were consulted, along with Anderson's mother.
The Tenenbaum children's bedrooms, stacked above one another on the second, third and fourth floor of the house, were dressed so that they remained virtually unchanged from the siblings' childhood until the time the adult Richie, Margot and Chas return home.
Says Luke Wilson, "I think collecting things always tells a lot about a person, what they keep and what they get rid of. In the case of the Tenenbaums, you wonder if it would be better if the rooms were changed and the artifacts of their childhood did get put away. Maybe it would enable them to move on and grow up.
Eric Anderson, the director's brother and a gifted artist and illustrator, was another important contributor to the film. He painted all of Richie's artwork, including seventeen portraits of Margot, which hang in the family ballroom. "He probably never even thought about the fact that he was obsessed with painting Margot," observes Luke Wilson. "I think artists o that, and it gives them away." Eric Anderson also painted the murals that cover Richie's bedroom walls and relate the history of the Tenenbaum family. "Richie's paintings are his diaries, and that's how he records the things that have happened in the family," says Luke Wilson.
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