Summers Residence

1630 Revello Drive in the fictional city of Sunnydale, California is the home of Buffy Summers and her family in the television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

History of the Summers' residence

Buffy Summers and her mother, Joyce, moved to 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, California, from Los Angeles, following Buffy’s expulsion from Hemery High School for having burned down the school’s gymnasium in a fight against local vampires. Buffy’s friends, Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg, were frequent visitors to the Summers' home, as was Buffy’s fellow slayer, Faith Lehane, and Buffy's boyfriend, the vampire Angel. Classmate Cordelia Chase also occasionally visited, as did Buffy's Watcher, Rupert Giles.

In season five, Buffy’s sister Dawn Summers joined Buffy and her mother as a resident in the house. After Joyce’s death, the house's occupants included (at various times) Willow and Tara, Xander, Giles, ex-demon Anya Jenkins, Amy Madison (while in rat form and briefly afterwords) reformed vampire Spike, reformed villain Andrew Wells, and several Potential Slayers. The house was their headquarters in the war against the First Evil and its henchmen.

Throughout the series, the residence was one of the chief sets for the television series. The set was last seen in the series finale "Chosen", during which the fictional residence, along with the whole fictional town of Sunnydale, was destroyed when it fell into the collapsed hellmouth.

Physical layout of the house

The house is a two storey, American Craftsman style home, with a full basement.

Exterior

A wide concrete sidewalk led from the curb, through the middle of the front yard, past palms and other trees and through a gap in a low hedge that fronted the porch, to a short flight of steps that led up to the front door, on either side of which were picture windows flanked by tall, narrower windows. The porch, spanning the width of the house, was overhung by part of the residence’s roof, which was supported by four pillars, the two beside the steps having brick pedestals.

Facing the house, there is a driveway to the right which leads alongside the house. It presumably leads to a garage, although no garage was ever shown in the series. [The driveway can be seen in "Dead Man's Party" (3.02) and again in "The Prom" (3.20, 17:12 on the Region 1 DVD). The view of the house in "The Prom" seems to also show a window on the side of the house in the dining room, although no actual window is present in the dining room in the show. In the actual house that was used for filming, this driveway does lead to a garage which opens onto the alley.]

The backyard stretches back to a fence which opens onto an alley. [Warren entered the backyard through the gate from the alley in "Seeing Red" (6.19).]

Basement

The house contained a full basement in which laundry facilities and the hot water tank were located along the back wall and a flight of stairs in the wall to the right led to the outside. The stairs to the basement were entered from the kitchen. In Season 7 the basement served as Spike's "prison" whilst he was adapting to having his soul returned to him.

Ground floor

The lower, or main floor was occupied by a foyer that led into a hallway off of which, facing away from the street, the dining room opened on the right and the living room opened on the left. A sitting room was located at the end of the hallway. The kitchen lay beyond the dining room, offering access to both the sitting room to its right and to the rear porch. A short flight of steps led from the back porch into the back yard. A staircase led from the foyer to the upper floor of the residence.

Upper floor

The upper floor contained three bedrooms and one bathroom. The master bedroom, facing the rear of the house, was initially occupied by Joyce. The front bedroom was initially occupied by Buffy. Between these there was a third room, which was a storage/sewing room and Joyce's home office until season four, but which became Dawn's bedroom in season five. The bathroom is across the hall from Buffy's bedroom, and there is also access to it from the master bedroom. Two gables projected from the roof, one over each of the picture windows. One of these gables contained the front window of Buffy’s bedroom, through which she sometimes came and went to patrol Sunnydale’s streets and cemeteries before she’d told her mother that she was a vampire slayer.

Between seasons five and six, Willow and Tara moved into the master bedroom, which was vacant following Joyce's death. When Buffy returned to life, she again took up residence in her old bedroom. Between seasons six and seven, when Willow was in England, Buffy moved to the master bedroom, and when Willow returned she took Buffy's old room.

Unusual features

A feature of the Summers's residence is very unusual for homes of its type in Southern California. Southern California homes rarely have basements of any type, much less spacious basements.

Neighbors

Buffy’s neighbor, Mrs. Kalish, lived next door to Buffy, at 1628 Revello Drive, until she was killed by Norman Pfister, “the bug man,” a member of the Order of Taraka, so that he could use it as a surveillance post from which to spy on Buffy. The same villain later trapped Xander and Cordelia in Buffy's basement after he appeared on the doorstep in the guise of a salesman giving away free cosmetics samples.

There appears to be an alley behind the house, as glimpsed when Warren Mears came through the back gate to shoot Buffy late in season six. This alley was never shown in detail.

Filming location

The actual house that was used for exterior shots of Buffy’s fictional residence is an occupied house on a narrow, tree-lined suburban street in Torrance, California — three blocks north of Torrance High School, which doubled as Sunnydale High School. It was also used for some interior scenes during Season One. [The easiest way to determine whether the interior scenes are on the set or in the actual house is to look at the bend in the stairs: in the actual house, the bend is rounded, while the bend on the set is a 90-degree angle.]

Footnotes

External links

* http://members.shaw.ca/pjzallday/FunStuff/FloorPlans.htm