HBO TV Series “Enlightened” and The Mid-Century Style TV House
HBO TV Series “Enlightened” Mid-Century House
I’ve been on an Enlightened-thon watching the 2012 Golden Globe-winning HBO TV series “Enlightened” for several days now and am a new fan watching season 2 episodes on Sunday nights. This is a home tour type post on the house on “Enlightened,” where the main character Amy Jellcoe lives, along with my review of the HBO TV show.
Enlightened is a comedy, drama starring Laura Dern, as Amy Jellicoe, an executive who in front of her co-workers at Abaddonn Industries, has a full-blown psycho-type breakdown after her affair ends with her boss who downgrades her position to an account she feels is beneath her worth. Amy then takes a sabbatical from work to a treatment center in Hawaii called Open Air where she is enlightened and has inner peace and happiness. She has the key to unlock the mysteries of the universe and wants everyone to know it and follow her out of the darkness into the light.
THE HOUSE ON ENLIGHTENED
The house in Enlightened at 5511 Senford Avenue in Ladera Heights, California is a 50’s or mid century style house that I adore and would not make any changes to at all down to the design on the garage door. My husband and I wondered about the rocks on the roof. At first I thought it was just a typical California desert-type terracotta roof, but on closer look it is rocks and quite beautiful at that. I’ve learned that this kind of roof is called Ballast Roofing used for many reasons such as wind protection and most likely used on this house for keeping it cool.
Amy having her meltdown in the office as she rants at her boss about what he has done to her.
Amy returns from Open Air Treatment Center to Abaddonn Industries a healed woman. She is whole now, and filled with hope for the future and overly confident she will be get her job back. The show has Amy talking her thoughts out loud to the TV viewers in a lilting voice with cloud dancing music and humming in the background that has the ability to take you away like your at Open Air Treatment Center and all your worries are gone. Amy wants us to know “You can walk out of hell and into the light.”
LEVI’S APARTMENT ON ENLIGHTENED
After being enlightened, Amy reconnects with her ex-husband Levi, played by Luke Wilson. She drops off a therapy book at his door that he could care less about as he has his own set of problems since their divorce with using alcohol and drugs to escape reality.
This photo and the above photos are of the apartment where Levi lives reported to be in Pasadena, but I don’t have an address yet.
Amy always wears bright cheery dresses to work in sharp contrast to everyone else at Abaddonn Industries who wear dark business suits.
She doesn’t get her executive position back much to her bewilderment, but is stashed in the basement doing data entry with the rest of the rejects/hard to place employees/employees who are “difficult.” Here is Tyler, played by Mike White who is also a writer on Enlightened. Tyler is lonely and the perfect patsy for Amy’s destructive plan to take Abaddonn Industries down.
Abaddonn in the Bible is a Hebrew term and means destroyer or where the “damned” lie in fire and snow, one of the places in “Hell” that Moses visited. – Wikipedia
For Amy, this is what Abaddon Industries begins to mean to her. It is the enemy, the place where evil lurks and must be destroyed. She is delusional and still half-crazy.
Per movielocationsandmore, her TV workplace is filmed at Warner Towers at 21600 Oxnaud. This is a scene from the show where Amy’s thoughts are: “Of course the world is vast and complex. To understand it you can reflect you whole life away and what have you done? Nothing! At some point you must do. It is not enough to have good intentions, you must act on them.” So begins her twisted plans.
INSIDE THE ENLIGHTENED MID-CENTURY HOUSE
She doesn’t fit in and is shunned by her past work friends and must show them the light. She is a do-gooder, wanna-be for the wrong reasons at the most inappropriate times that is made clear at a baby shower where she makes a speech about people who don’t have it as good and wants everyone to join her new women’s activist group. She puts a damper on the whole happy baby shower atmosphere.
Beautiful Diane Ladd plays Helen Jellicoe, Amy’s not-good-enough Mom, and is Laura Dern’s mom in real life, so I love that this mother-daughter team is back together again. The two have starred in movies together before. Most notably Rambling Rose for which they both received Oscar nominations.
Inside the Enlightened house is 50s deco. Everything looks like it has been there since the 1950s.
Amy’s mother, Helen likes birds.
and has a magnificent rose garden.
Many of the rooms in the house are decorated with this deep orange color that is the same as the roses she grows.
Even their dog is orange, and Levi’s apartment is coral colored so I wondered what the significance of this color implies for the show other than it is a warm and inviting color. “Orange offers emotional strength in difficult times. It helps us to bounce back from disappointments and despair, assisting in recovery from grief.”
The kitchen with its 50s wallpaper and matching airy curtains and the hanging lamp over the table.
I enjoy the show for the plot and characters as much as for looking at the furniture like these flowery iron scroll chairs.
The pool with more roses is a beautiful scene much like a lot of the scenes from the show that are shown slowly to the audience and gives a peaceful feeling.
