Where was Ratched filmed? The Hospital and House Filming Locations

Posted by Ra Moon

The 1940's-era Netflix series Ratched was entirely filmed in California. This suspenseful drama is a prequel to the 1975 brilliant Milos Forman film with Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, based on the 1962 novel by Ken Kesey.

The story is focused on the origins of the mental asylum nurse Mildred Ratched, played by Sarah Paulson (known for performing many different characters in American Horror Story). Jon Jon Briones plays disturbed Dr. Richard Hanover, the director of the stylish Lucia Psychiatric Hospital. Completes the main cast Finn Wittrock as clergy killer Edmund Tolleson, Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon as Gwendolyn Briggs, Judy Davis as Nurse Betsy Bucket, and Sharon Stone as Lenore Osgood.

The show features gorgeous and colorful visuals, an orchestral score inspired by the music created for Alfred Hitchcock's movies, and wondrous filming locations:

The series opens with a scene filmed in the St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church in University Park (West Adams historic neighborhood). A key sequence of Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1999 film End of Days was also shot in this splendid Spanish-baroque style monument.
(You can open all the locations on Google Maps clicking on the links below in the captions ↴)
Image courtesy of Netflix and Google Maps

In the first episode, the gas station where Ratched stops when she's heading to Lucia was filmed in the Toro Place Cafe Restaurant on the Monterey Salinas Highway. Image courtesy of Netflix and Google Maps

Is not this the most scenic bridge in California? Located on the Big Sur coast, the Bixby Creek Bridge was also featured in the opening credits and several driving scenes of Big Little Lies. Image courtesy of Netflix - Map

Perched on a cliff over the Pacific, the Sealight Inn is a real motel called the Lucia Lodge. This family-run resort opened in the 1930s and is situated adjacent to highway one, between the Santa Lucia Mountains and the ocean. There is also a restaurant and a large panoramic deck not featured in the series. The small village of Lucia also really exists and is located here, 48 miles south of Carmel and Monterey. Image courtesy of Netflix - Map

The Lucia Estate Mental Hospital exterior is the King Gillette Ranch historic mansion. Located in the heart of Malibu Creek, this Spanish Colonial Revival complex was designed by California’s Golden Age architect Wallace Neff in the late 1920s for razor magnate King C. Gillette. Nowadays this is a 588-acre public parkland and wildlife sanctuary that you can visit near Calabasas. All the magnificent interior rooms are sets built at 20th Century Fox Studios. Image courtesy of Netflix - Map

The vaulted ceiling with tile arches of the cellar where Edmund is imprisoned is L.A.'s old Dutch Chocolate Shop. Created by Ernest Batchelder in 1914, this hidden elaborate tilework room is housed on the ground floor of a run-down building at 217 W 6th St in Los Angeles. Decorated with murals of Dutch ships, windmills, and canals, this large hall is not open to the public. However, it has been used multiple times to shoot numerous productions including Steve McQueen's The Hunter (1980), Castle television series, The Good Place, and Taylor Swift's music video Bad Blood. Pictured, Australian actress Alice Englert as Nurse Dolly. Image courtesy of Netflix - Map

Lenore Osgood's (Sharon Stone) mansion with a Thai-Asian maximalist decor is Tony Duquette's house. This legendary estate, known as Dawnridge, is located at 1354 Dawnridge Dr in Beverly Hills. Tony Duquette was a designer specialized in stage and film who loved creating whimsically baroque interior sets. After he died in 1999, his friend and longtime collaborator Hutton Wilkinson bought the property to save his legacy. The Wilkinsons redecorated the house with Duquette's work. They also built the exotic Indian temple in the garden featured in the series. Image courtesy of Netflix - Map

The bar where Dr. Hanover meets governor George Wilburn (Vincent D'Onofrio) and his press secretary Gwendolyn is the Cole's French Dip. Located at 118 East 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles, this 1908 barroom is one of the oldest restaurants in the city. Also in the first episode, Ratched talks to nurse Amelia Emerson in the Tony's Saloon (pictured below), located in the Arts District at 2017 E 7th St.

Image courtesy of Netflix - Maps: Cole's French Dip / Tony's Saloon

The oyster bar with ocean views is the Fish Hopper seafood restaurant at Cannery Row in Monterey. This waterfront street used to host several sardine canning factories. Now the area is a tourist attraction packed with restaurants and hotels, located in piers and former cannery buildings. Image courtesy of Netflix - Map

The cabin bar in the forest from episode 2 is the Big Sur Grange Hall, located just off Highway 1 in Big Sur, around 25 miles south of Carmel in Monterey County. Image courtesy of Netflix - Map

Episode 5 begins with Dr Hanover meeting Mildred in the Guido's Restaurant, a nice vintage bar in L.A.'s Sawtelle neighborhood. Also in the same episode, the scene with a violin player where Charlotte Wells (Sophie Okonedo) claims to be a diva called Ondine Duquette was filmed at Mount Saint Mary's University. Situated in the foothills of Santa Monica Mountains, the Chalon Campus has a beautiful arched Mission Revival square built in 1930. Image courtesy of Netflix - Maps: Bar / Church square

The creepy puppet theatre from episode 6 is the old Union Theatre, hosting since 2007 the Velaslavasay Panorama in University Park (West Adams). The phone call in a gas station from the last scene is the Four Aces Movie Ranch, the famous vintage set located in Lake Los Angeles near Palmdale.

Image courtesy of Netflix - Maps: Theatre / Gas station

The hotel in Mexico is the charming tile-rich Mediterranean Revival Adamson House in Malibu. Built in 1929, this historic house was about to be razed to make way for beach parking in the late 60s. In normal circumstances, the property is open to visitors along with the adjacent Malibu Lagoon Museum. Image courtesy of Netflix - Map

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