Gothic, southern and cool.
Not even in your most pop and gothic dreams would you have imagined that you could sleep in the same place where Beyonce shot much of Sorry for lemonade, or step where they stepped Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning and Sofia Coppola during the filming of The seduction. If Madewood Plantation was already a National Historic Landmark, that is, a house protected for its historical interest, now it is also a place of pilgrimage for fans and moviegoers around the world.
Just 120 kilometers from New Orleans , 72 from Baton Rouge, near Napaleonville, is this Greek-style mansion built in 1846 as the main residence of a sugar plantation.
Nicole Kidman, housewife.
Ann Ross, the art director of sophia coppola and who, precisely, encouraged him to read the original novel by thomas cullinan 1966, she was also the one who found this house, now converted into a Bed & Breakfast full of southern charm.
Ross and Coppola used the exterior, kitchen and dining room of Madewood Plantation to turn it into the school for girls run by Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman). The rest, including the staircase, was shot in other houses in New Orleans. Some plants were added to the façade to give it an atmosphere and practically all the furniture was changed inside. “We brought in trees and plants and branches to give the property the feel of things being abandoned,” said Anne Ross.
You could eat there.
In the film, the house is located in Virginia and they are in the middle of the Civil War, Miss Marta manages to keep it out of the conflict and the soldiers respect her, but it takes many years without the help of servants and men to take care of the extensive garden, for example (in this Coppola has also shielded himself on the accusations of whitewashing history and not including the slaves that were in the original Don Siegel's 1971 novel and film with Clint Eastwood).
When Beyoncé and her team occupied Madewood Plantation for three days, they did use the original furniture from the house instead. Like the carved wooden chair, owned by the mother of the B&B owner, Millie Marshall, in which she sat. Queen Bey with Serena Williams; and in which Elle Fanning and Kirsten Dunst they couldn't help repeating the scene.
Southern cupcakes.
The ladder the diva comes down is also the original Madewood, however, the one that comes out in the seduction and it has a key moment in the film (in addition to having served as the main image for the promotion) it was not shot in the incredible mansion in Louisiana, but in another of the houses that they used as a set.
Madewood gates.
Neither Beyoncé had discovered it as a location, nor had Coppola done it now for the cinema. The plantation appeared in the series A Woman Called Moses (1978), in the movie Sister, Sister ( 1987) or in the remake Roots. And, above all, it is a Bed & Breakfast very frequented by Hollywood faces when they are filming in the area or relaxing.
Its owners, Keith and Millie Marshall, have renamed a room as Brad Pitt's room because the actor stayed there to study his role while they were shooting Interview with the Vampire. And they say that Faye Dunaway he tried to buy decorations and furniture from them when she stayed there during a shoot.
And if, like all of them, although we are only mere mortals, you want to have a southern gothic experience in “Brad Pitt's room” or “mystery lady's room”, you can. Your fees go from 200 euros to 250 and as a good and cozy Bed & Breakfast it includes a cheese and wine reception in the library, dinner in the dining room (the same one where Kidman and his ladies receive Colin Farrell), post-dinner brandy and breakfast.