The Best Reorchestrations in “Maestro” Are Leonard Bernstein’s Homes

Bradley Cooper’s goal for Maestro, which chronicles the long, complicated love story of legendary American conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) and Costa Rican-Chilean actress Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), was to give the film a melodic quality, according to production designer Kevin Thompson. Cooper, who cowrote, coproduced, directed, and stars in the biopic (for which he reportedly trained extensively) wanted its sequences—the first half in black-and-white and the second half in color—to move "seamlessly from decade to decade with a lyrical feeling," says Thompson. "He often described [the movie] as a piece of music…that we should think about the pacing of scenes, so that you just sort of float through it."

Though the film is a soaring ode to Bernstein’s life and art, it’s still grounded in historical accuracy, with many scenes shot at the renowned conductor’s old haunts, like Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, and London’s Ely Cathedral, where in one particularly demanding scene Cooper recreates the maestro’s 1973 performance conducting Mahler’s Second Symphony. But no on-screen location hits closer to home than the Bernsteins’ actual Fairfield, Connecticut, estate. The couple purchased the property, a former horse farm sited on six-and-a-half acres, for the then extravagant sum of $80,000 in 1962, and it’s remained in the family since. (Bernstein’s three adult children, Jamie, Alexander, and Nina, inherited the house after his death in 1990.)

When Cooper and Thompson—who was introduced to classical music as a kid watching Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts—first visited the Fairfield property, Thompson says they discovered "a little bit of a museum."

"The house was not that different than it was in the 1980s," he explains. "When we walked around we felt Bernstein’s ghost was there, and so was Felicia’s."

Cooper told Jamie, Alexander, and Nina—whom he consulted with throughout the production process—that he’d love to shoot at the compound, and they threw open the doors. (The family also offered their full support when the actor, who is not Jewish, drew criticism for donning a prosthetically enhanced nose to play their father, who was the son of Jewish immigrants from Rivne, now in Ukraine.) Since the well-preserved Connecticut property, to which almost 12 acres of woodland has been added, was mostly an ’80s relic, Thompson’s team spruced it up for the camera. Faded fabric on the living room couch was replaced with new material matching the original; new rugs, bedding, and curtains freshened Leonard and Felicia’s bedroom (now Jamie’s) where in the film, the couple talk about the "gossip" Jamie has heard about her father’s dalliances. But the room’s print wallpaper, as well as the floral wall covering in the hall and stairwell—where we see Felicia consider "Lenny’s" indiscretions—is vintage from the existing interior. The production’s most extensive house work was done in the remodeled cottage that was once Bernstein’s music studio, where he composes "Mass" in the film. For reference, Thompson relied on the reconstructed version of the workroom, with its original contents donated by the family, on display at Indiana University.  

Audiences may also spot some of Felicia’s paintings, needlepoint pillows, and wicker chairs "picked clean with dental instruments," as Jamie wrote in her 2018 memoir, Famous Father Girl, in various scenes shot at the classic New England saltbox house. Notably, the baby grand piano Cooper plays at the start of the film was Bernstein’s actual Steinway, a gift from his childhood piano teacher, who later became his secretary.

Much more effort went into replicating the Bernsteins’ New York City apartment at the landmark Dakota building, a gabled and turreted 1884 German Renaissance-style structure with a porte cochere and a storied history of famous residents. In the film, the Upper West Side apartment is the setting for one of the couple’s legendary parties, and a not-so-happy family Thanksgiving. Long since sold, Cooper and Thompson scouted the now-renovated unit overlooking Central Park and had a replica built to scale on a soundstage, honing in on its 19th-century architectural details, such as the mahogany-trimmed vestibule and foyer where Bernstein shows up late for the aforementioned Thanksgiving. 

To decorate the set in what Thompson calls the Bernsteins’ "creatively bohemian" style, the production designer consulted a 1984 Architectural Digest story about the home. He even sourced instruments identical to Bernstein’s, like the living room’s Bösendorfer grand piano with extra bass keys (that Bernstein referred to as his "B-52") on which he composed his opera "A Quiet Place." (When the original piano was auctioned off at Sotheby’s, it had to be removed from the apartment with a crane.) The Dowd double manual harpsichord and hanging lamp with a fringe shade in the apartment’s library also mimic the maestro’s. "Spending a good deal of time in the Connecticut house informed how the Dakota could be fleshed out," Thompson says. "It really gave us a window into the intimate details of how the Bernsteins lived."

Top photo courtesy Netflix

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