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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 Mansion
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.
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Exterior and Interior shots of the Clampett
Mansion |
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Front of the Clampett Mansion |
Entrance gate to
the Camplett Estate |
Clampett Mansion
from a distance |
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Side view of front yard |
Jed in the Lobby |
Granny & Jed
in the parlor |
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Granny and Jed
in the kitchen |
Granny by the
cement pond |
Granny cooking
at the stove |
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Car parked by front door |
Elly May descends staircase to lobby |
The Drysdale Home next to the Clampetts |
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.
Jed, Jethro, Elly May, Duke, and Granny Clampett
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).
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