Clampett Mansion - Luxurious 32-room, 14-bath mansion located at 518 Crestview Drive in Beverly Hills on the sitcom THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES/CBS/1962-71. The Clampett mansion was owned by the Clampett's, a hillbilly family who moved to Beverly Hills, California after striking "black gold, Texas tea" (oil to the layman) on their Ozark homestead.

The Clampett family included widowed patriarch Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen), mother-in-law Daisy Moses, a.k.a. "Granny" (Irene Ryan), Jed's daughter Elly Mae (Donna Douglas) and cousin Jethro Bodine (Max Bear, Jr.).

To create the interiors for THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES mansion, a huge set was constructed on Stage 4 at General Service Studios. The set included a foyer, a parlor that led into a kitchen, a swimming pool (a.k.a. "cee-ment pond"), an exterior facade of the Commerce Bank, and the executive offices of banker Mr. Drysdale (Raymond Bailey). The twenty-seven-inch deep "cee-ment pond" cost $20,000 and took nearly half a day to heat.

Other architectural features were the Clampett's mail box which they called "Finley;" and a doorbell chime that was a running gag for these backwood folks who just couldn't connect the musical chimes with people arriving at the front door. Jed's small mountain shack seen in the beginning of the program was built on location at Franklin Canyon in southern California.

Throughout the series the Clampetts traveled to a number of locations. When the Clampetts inherited a castle in England on episode No. 169 "Jed Inherits a Castle," the program scouted out the huge, 600-year-old Penshurst Castle in Tunbridge, Kent built by Sir John de Pulteney for a set location. The historical castle had been the host to King Henry VIII in the early 1500s who dined with its owner and then had him beheaded.

In 1969 the Clampetts visited the Missouri Ozarks to find Elly May a husband. starting with episode No. 225 "Back to the Hills." This time town of Branson was used as the backdrop for shooting the episodes including Silver Dollar City, (a 2,000 acre tourist development dedicated to the preservation of the arts and crafts of the Ozark Culture), the Silver Dollar City Hotel, a candle-making shop, a blacksmith shop and a woodcarver shop.

Back in Hollywood, a replica of the Silver Dollar City Hotel was created on a sound stage. Since the Clampetts  visit in the late 1960s, Branson, Missouri along with Silver Dollar City has become one of the Midwest's top tourist destinations.

TRIVIA NOTE: The actual mansion (a.k.a. "The Kirkeby Mansion") used for establishing exterior shots on the series was built in 1933 on a sprawling 6.5 acre tract of land located at 750 Bel Air Road in Bel Air, California by millionaire Arnold Kirkeby, a Chicago hotel magnate. The 20,000 square foot mansion featured a billiard room, marble-walled ballroom, a 150-foot waterfall and, of course, a "cee-ment pond."

The Kirkeby mansion went up on the market in the mid 1980s with an asking price of $27 million dollars. It was purchased by TV executive named Jerrold Perrenchio in 1987 for $13.7 million. 

Just before THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, the Kirkeby mansion was used as the location for the Jerry Lewis motion picture Cinderfella (1960). 

External Links

• The Beverly Hillbillies (IMDb)
• Aerial view of Clampett Mansion