Darien, CT Home Transformed for “Revolutionary Road” Movie

If you have a fear of living in the suburbs, then the movie Revolutionary Road is not for you. Filmed in 2007 in Darien, CT, the movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as Frank and April Wheeler who move to a Connecticut suburb to raise their kids as Frank commutes into New York to pursue a boring corporate job while April is a stay-at-home mom who spends most of her psychic energy on how to make her life interesting — preferably in some other locale, like Paris.

What’s remarkable is that the real home used in Revolutionary Road was transformed inside and out to meet director Sam Mendes’ vision of a typical 1950s home, which was the time period for the movie. According to the Hartford Courant, production designer Kristi Zea was tasked with finding the right home.

“Sam was very specific in his requests; the house had to have two levels — no splits or ranches,” Zea said. “This house had all the ingredients of what would have been around in the 1950s.”

“This house” is owned by Peter and Becky Siciliano, who got a knock on their door by a Dreamworks location scout in April of 2007 with the request to use and redo their house, as necessary, in exchange for a “a pile of money and a beach house in Rowayton.” They agreed and were displaced for five months while Hollywood took over. Changes made to the house include:

• Removing a wall in the bedroom and installing an I-beam to keep it from falling down.
• Replacing the kitchen with knotty pine cabinets and period appliances.
• Covering the garage. Also, the landscapers created a little hill for the car to sit on.
• A local landscaper was paid $156,000 to dismantle and then rebuild an elaborate stone wall in the backyard of the Sicilianos’ home.

By the way, the Courant article doesn’t mention the transformation to the exterior, which went from a dark beige siding with green shutters to a white shingled siding with red shutters, but it’s clearly the same house.

Locations in New York and New Jersey were researched, as well as Connecticut, but Darien was chosen because Connecticut offered tax incentives. Here are some behind-the-scenes video of Revolutionary Road. Scenes with the house start around the six-minute mark.