The hit show “Your Friends & Neighbors,” starring Jon Hamm and Olivia Munn, is set in the fictional suburb of Westmont Village—seemingly based on Westchester County. In fact, scenes from the first season were filmed on Rye’s Purchase Street—the city’s quintessential downtown area—and the cast and crew returned in April for more filming, according to The Rye Record.
A local architect was surprised to see a residence he designed in Purchase appear onscreen. In the show, this masterpiece is the home of Nick Brandes (Mel Cooper’s boyfriend). Architect Lucio Di Leo founded Studio Rai almost 40 years ago. Today, he is partners with his son, Stefan Di Leo, and they hold offices in Pound Ridge and Pelham.
“It’s weird. I’ve never had that before,” says architect Lucio Di Leo of seeing the home he designed appear on screen. “What’s interesting is you get to see how the people are actually using the house.” Di Leo designed the home almost two decades ago in 2006 and it was completed in 2008. “It started as a privately designed house. The developer was friends with my client and the client decided not to live there, so the developer took it over and he finished the house to be sold. I don’t know who lives there now,” he says. The builder was Robert Georgio of Homestart Development, which is now Rye-based Georgio Home.
The house spans 17,000-square-feet in all. The first and second floor include the majority of the square-footage, with a mudroom, kitchen, family room, formal living and dining rooms. It was built with six bedrooms—four children’s rooms and two primary suites—plus a maid’s room. “Based on the scenes from the show, it looks like they kept most of the architecture there. The kitchen, either they redid it or they are shooting it in a studio set,” Stefan Di Leo says.
Architectural details throughout are a nod to the nearby Old Oaks Country Club, a grand manor built at the turn of the century. Di Leo incorporated Old World finishes, such as stone, slate, copper, and outdoor verandas. Blacksmith Vaclav Barina of Vaclav Metalcraft worked on railings throughout, as well as iron features in the 5,000-bottle wine cellar.
Perhaps one of the most grand aspects is the foyer, lined with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out to the swimming pool—providing a sense of place. “Sometimes you walk into a foyer and there are no windows or doors—you really don’t know where you are and the house takes over,” Lucio Di Leo says. “If you get closer to the back of the foyer, you can see the large swimming pool and it has a very large waterfall that drops a whole story. When the pool is not being used, it just looks like a reflecting pond with a large waterfall.”
Di Leo designed the pool area himself, while landscape architect Nick Pouder of Pouder Design Group brought the four-acre property’s green spaces to life. “I like to incorporate the hardscape—the steps, the patios—into our architecture,” Di Leo says. “I want the outside to really relate to the inside of the house.”
The residence was certainly made to entertain—and this is portrayed in the show. The East Veranda is adorned with stone arches, which use a local Westchester granite. “It was hard to find this color that makes it look very old.” Di Leo says the lower level was originally built with a squash court, but in the show it appears to have been changed to a basketball court. “That’s where a lot of the scenes take place—where they’re having drinks and playing basketball.”
For those local to the area, the television screen isn’t the only place you might see Studio Rai’s projects. The firm works on a breadth of projects, including commercial spaces like area-favorite grocery store DeCicco & Sons in Harrison, Somers, Sleepy Hollow, and Greenwich (coming soon) and Moderne Barn restaurant in Armonk. “We have many different projects on many different scales,” Di Leo says. ” If it involves design, I’m interested in it.”