Part of what made “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” such a beloved cult hit was that fans could truly get lost in the world of Sunnydale. The slayer’s hometown felt like a real place, and when mixed with the allure of late-’90s California — a state which had largely defined the culture of the decade with its valley slang and surfer/skateboard culture — made for one of the most immersive TV experiences of its time. Of course, it helped that everybody wanted to be friends with the Scooby Gang, but there was an undeniable charm to the supernatural epicenter that was Sunnydale.
Advertisement
Sadly, loving “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” has become complicated in recent years. After creator Joss Whedon was accused of, among other things, running a toxic set that made life very difficult for the “Buffy” cast, Sarah Michelle Gellar included, the show that had meant so much to ’90s kids raised on its intoxicating mix of teen drama and horror suddenly didn’t seem quite so comforting as it once was. But if the time since these allegations surfaced has proven anything, it’s that “Buffy” doesn’t belong to Whedon, it belongs to the fans whose formative years were in large part shaped by the series.
Films like “I Saw the TV Glow” have reckoned with the impact a show like “Buffy” had on a generation now nostalgic for its late-’90s charm, and Amber Benson, who played Tara on the series, debuted her audio series “Slayers: A Buffyverse Story” in 2024. While this reckoning with the show’s legacy continues, I think it’s ok for fans to remember why they loved it in the first place and just nerd out about “Buffy” from time to time. Superfans of the series might well recall fond memories of looking up the shooting locations on their dial-up internet connections, just to feel a little closer to the town of Sunnydale, and what better way to reacquaint ourselves with the series’ charm two decades after it aired by revisiting some of the town’s most memorable locations and their real-life counterparts?
Advertisement
Sunnydale High School was mostly shot at a real school in LA
The very first thing we saw when the show first aired (unless you count that unaired pilot that almost killed “Buffy” before it started) was a shot of Sunnydale High School. It was a fitting opening to a show for which high school melodrama formed such a big part of its thematic identity. Throughout the first three seasons of the show, before it was destroyed at the end of season 3 and Buffy and Willow enrolled in UC Sunnydale in season 4, Sunnydale High was one of the most important locations in the series.
Advertisement
Exterior scenes at the school were actually shot at the real-life Torrance High School, at 2200 W. Carson Street in Torrance, California. These outdoor shots weren’t just the school’s facade, either. Throughout the early seasons we see Buffy and the scoobies hanging out in a courtyard at the school, which can also be seen in another touchstone of late-’90s teen drama, “She’s All That.” Torrance High School was also used in “Beverly Hills 90210” and is therefore bordering on iconic ’90s shooting location status.
Other parts of Sunnydale High were filmed elsewhere. The swimming pool in season 2 episode “Go Fish,” for instance, was located at the University of Southern California Physical Education Building and the football stadium in “Some Assembly Required” belonged to West High School, also in Torrance. After Sunnydale high school is destroyed, it is rebuilt and reappears in the season 7 premiere, “Lessons.” This renewed version of the school was shot at the California State University in Northridge. Otherwise, the Sunnydale High we all remember was mostly Torrance High School.
Advertisement
Buffy’s House is a real house close to Sunnydale High School
Almost as recognizable, if not more so than the Sunnydale High foyer is Buffy’s house, 1630 Revello Drive — the exterior of which has become ingrained in the minds of anyone who grew up on “Buffy.” Frankly, it looked like a lovely little Californian abode even if it did happen to have the unfortunate downside of being built on top of the Hellmouth.
Advertisement
While interiors of Buffy’s home were mostly filmed on a soundstage, the exterior we all remember is a real home located not that far from Sunnydale High itself. The house used for exterior shots is located at 1313 Cota Avenue, which is just three blocks north of Torrance High School, where the school scenes were mostly filmed.
For the first two seasons of “Buffy,” 1313 Cota Avenue was actually used to film some interior scenes, but only the first floor was actually used. Second floor interiors were all shot on stages, and the downstairs was eventually recreated on a stage after the second season — a set that played host to perhaps the saddest scene in “Buffy” history and the best thing that Joss Whedon claims he’s ever done: the opening scene of season 5’s “The Body.”
Advertisement
The Buffy crew built a whole street for downtown Sunnydale
“Buffy” used many real world locations to create Sunnydale, but quite a lot of Buffy’s hometown was actually constructed specifically for the show. Instead of shooting on an actual studio backlot, the center of “Buffy” production was actually located on a warehouse lot in Santa Monica, at the intersection of Stewart Street and Exposition Blvd. Here, the crew erected several well-known locations, using the warehouses for interior shots and the parking lot for certain exterior locations. But arguably the most impressive creation was an entire street which served as downtown Sunnydale.
Advertisement
Known as Maple Court, the street was featured in “Buffy” from the third season on and played host to several memorable stores including Sun Cinema, the Espresso Pump and The Magic Box, which was at one time owned by Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), who left “Buffy” before the show ended. Interestingly enough, before it was The Magic Box, the store was a different magic shop which acted as a facade for Maple Court, before Giles took over the store in season five and it was transformed into The Magic Box, complete with an interior set.
Production designer Carey Meyer spoke to the BBC about how Maple Court evolved throughout the show’s seven seasons, beginning with the Espresso Pump, which was based on a famous painting. He said:
Advertisement
“It used to just be the parking lot on the back side of our stage. The only thing here before I started was a palm tree. Joss had always talked about having a little backyard or a Sunnydale main street [so] I keyed off the Edward Hopper painting of the diner and did an illustration of [the Espresso Pump] that looked very much like the Edward Hopper painting.”
Meyer went on to explain how the crew continued adding pieces to the area around the Espresso Pump. He continued: “Through season three, we just kept adding little facades and plugging up little spaces until we [ended up with] this whole little street back here. But it took a full season for that to take place.”
If you want to get excessively nerdy about it (and if you’re reading this article, you probably do) you can actually see the original Maple Court set standing in its original form on Google Earth, where there is satellite imagery available from 2002 and 2003, the years when “Buffy” was filming its final seasons.
The Bronze was built especially for the series
“Buffy” didn’t have the luxury of a studio backlot, but the production crew certainly made the most of their modest Santa Monica warehouse lot, creating locations from scratch when they couldn’t use real-world buildings. The Bronze was one example. Before the warehouse lot was used to create Maple Court, it was used as a home for the now legendary club where Buffy and her pals would hang on a regular basis and which hosted an impressive array of musical acts during the show’s run, including the Breeders, Michelle Branch, Aimee Mann. The set itself was actually constructed inside a warehouse on the Santa Monica lot. The club had both an interior and an exterior facade, and the latter was at the very end of Sunnydale’s main street set.
Advertisement
In the book, “Slayers and Vampires: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Buffy and Angel” creator Joss Whedon is quoted as saying, “When we designed the club, we put the door to the club on the outside of the actual warehouse so that we could go in from the outside because that would give it real life and make it very realistic.” The approach certainly worked. So beloved is The Bronze, that one of 2024’s best horrors, “I Saw the TV Glow,” paid homage to its enduring cultural impact by having the characters visit a club called the Double Lunch that looks very similar to the beloved “Buffy” location and which featured performances by Phoebe Bridgers and her former band Sloppy Jane.
Advertisement
Sunnydale Cemetery is a real place… sort of
“Buffy” made such impressive use of its warehouse lot throughout its time, even while a handful of scenes were actually shot on the Warner Bros. backlot. That includes the Gentlemen’s lair from the scariest episode of “Buffy” (you can actually see the Gentlemen themselves drifting down the street that would later be used as Wisteria Lane in “Desperate Housewives”). Otherwise, the Santa Monica lot was where the majority of the show was filmed, and that was mostly the case for Sunnydale Cemetery.
Advertisement
For the first season of “Buffy,” the crew shot mostly in the real Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery at 1831 West Washington Boulevard in Los Angeles. But after this, the crew needed a more accessible option, and a fake cemetery was built in the Santa Monica lot, including tombstones created by production designer Carey Meyer. Speaking to the BBC, Meyer said the cemetery “used to be parking lot,” adding:
“We poured in kerb, back-filled it with dirt and planted grass and lots of trees and stuff and that’s our graveyard set. We shoot a lot of the graveyard stuff there. We do go to another cemetery for much wider shots, but the majority of our cemetery stuff actually takes place in that little tiny parking lot. At night, with a couple of headstones in the background with all the trees and such, you can really cheat to make it look quite large. We bring out fake grass and put it on the tarmac and fill it all in, but it’s just a little tiny parking lot.”
Advertisement
In the book, “Slayers and Vampires: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Buffy and Angel,” creator Joss Whedon was slightly less enthusiastic about the cemetery set, saying, “It made our lives a whole lot easier, but it doesn’t give you the scope you get from a real graveyard.” Still, for most fans of the series, the show’s makeshift cemetery was more than adequate, especially when combined with shots from Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery. Another big location for the series, Spike’s crypt, was created right next to the show’s parking lot cemetery.
Angel’s mansion was a famous LA landmark
In the second season of Buffy, we were introduced to James Marsters’ Spike and his wife Drusilla (Juliet Landau), who lived in a decrepit mansion in Sunnydale known as Crawford Street mansion. Later, they’re joined by David Boreanaz’s Angel after he loses his soul, and in season 3 the mansion hosted Angel after he was resurrected.
Advertisement
The interiors of the mansion were created on a soundstage, but these interiors were directly influenced by the building used for exterior shots of the mansion: the Ennis house. This unique building in the hills of Los Feliz near Griffith Park Observatory was designed by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and was also featured heavily in Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner,” serving as the home of Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard.
The Ennis house was built in 1924 and its design was inspired by ancient Mayan temples. This unique style found its way into the interior mansion sets constructed for “Buffy,” where a similar “textile block” design can be seen on the interior walls.
