The 1986 movie The Money Pit was a comedy of house errors, showing just about everything that could possibly go wrong with a fixer upper. Tom Hanks and Shelley Long played a young couple that bought a house that seemed too good to be true but — spoiler alert! — it wasn’t.
They filmed the exterior shots at a Long Island mansion known as Northway, which imitated life by falling into a serious state of disrepair itself for a while after the movie was made. In The Money Pit, Walter and Anna bought this place for $200,000, but it’s for sale again and priced a bit higher than that, ha. At least it’s already been fixed up for you — take a look!
The Real “Money Pit” House
At the end of the movie, they added window boxes to indicate the renovations were complete:
It’s a big place, with a whopping 14,000 square feet.
They used miniature models of the house for some of the stunts…
…and the interiors were recreated on a soundstage, so no houses were harmed during the filming of the movie. 
Yikes!
One of my pet peeves was they didn’t show us how all the rooms turned out in the end.
We did see the staircase and entry hall, though.
And we got a glimpse of the rooms on either side of it, but they weren’t furnished or decorated.
This is what the real entry hall and staircase look like:
Love that it has a fireplace in it, and I prefer the wood floors it has.
The house was built in 1898.
The listing says:
“A quarter-mile gated drive introduces Northway, a grand estate lovingly and meticulously restored, featuring elaborate moldings and ebony wood floors.”
The dining room seats 28, according to this article. Plenty of space for entertaining, as they’d say on “House Hunters.” 
It has 8 bedrooms + 10 baths.
This is what the master bath looked like in the movie:
Moments later, the tub crashed through the floor and landed here:
Fortunately, the real master bath looks like it’s in much better shape!
There are 8 fireplaces throughout the house, including one in the “opulent 4-room master suite.”
Hard to imagine what a young couple like Walter and Anna in The Money Pit would do with such a big, formal house. You could lose each other in a place like this!
In the movie, the kitchen was a dangerous room to spend time in:
Remember this scene, in which a simple flick of the light switch ended up destroying much of the room?
This is the real kitchen, and its electrical system is presumably more reliable:
The house was owned by Olympic gold medalist Eric Ridder when the movie was filmed here, but it later fell into disrepair.
The Pool House:
The current owners say art imitated life for them when they bought the house in 2002, telling the NYT, “We didn’t realize how bad it was. The house was falling apart when you went from room to room.”
“We definitely could have done a Money Pit sequel.”
“A crew of 30 spent a year and a half gutting the house, taking down ceilings, ripping out the cast-iron radiators, redoing the plumbing, heating and electrical systems, installing a cedar roof that cures to gray, not brown, and restoring the home to the splendor of Long Island’s Gilded Age.”
The property also comes with a saltwater pool and a 6-car garage.
Here’s how the back of the house looked in the movie (a miniature model was used for some scenes):
New doors and windows have been added since then:
It sits on 5.5 acres.
The Money Pit was loosely based on the classic Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House:
You can see how the Blandings movie house looks today here. (One of my faves!)
For the wedding scene, they dressed up the exterior of the house a bit with garland and flowers:
Northway today:
Want it? They’re asking $5.9m, which seems like a good deal considering it was on the market in 2014 for $12.5. You may recall I told you about it a few years ago when it was first listed. From what I can tell, they took it off the market for a while and are now trying again with a different agent.
For more information, check the Sotheby’s listing. You can learn more about the movie in my original post, which includes the model of the house they used for some of the stunts!
P.S. Visit Houses Onscreen to see more, including the real Cheaper by the Dozen house:
*NOTE: I’m having issues with the comments right now, which is why they’re closed.*
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by hookedonhouses via Home And Garden
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