In The Roses, a darkly comic reimagining of the 1989 film The War of the Roses, the scene-stealing house at the heart of the film isn’t just a location—it’s a battle zone. For husband Theo (played by Benedict Cumberbatch), a once-celebrated architect whose career implodes after a weather-related disaster turns into a viral meme, it represents a comeback commission. For wife Ivy (Olivia Colman), a rising Northern California culinary star, it’s another proverbial trophy on the mantel. Designed as a statement of his vision and her success, the seaside Scandi-modern dream home becomes collateral damage.
Ivy, played by Olivia Colman, faces off against husband Theo across a dinner table strewn with a cake she baked in the shape of their home.
Jaap Buitendijk, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2025
Theo, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, designs their home as the apotheosis of his architectural career.
Jaap Buitendijk, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2025Oscar- and Emmy-nominated production designer Mark Ricker embraced the challenge of designing the home from scratch, along with the film’s other key settings, including a maritime museum and seaside café. “I was simultaneously thrilled and terrified at the prospect of this as I am not an architect,” Ricker says, “After designing Feud: Capote vs. The Swans and Halston, I’d been living in a period of the 1960s and ’70s, and this gave me an opportunity to stretch and use a different muscle.”
Production designer Mark Ricker’s sketch for the California coastal house’s exterior.
Courtesy of Mark Ricker/Searchlight
Ricker created a mood board of inspiration images.
Courtesy of Mark Ricker/SearchlightInspired by Scandinavian architecture and the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Ricker created a modern glass house with the tactile warmth and cozy appeal of hygge. Sketching the designs on a train to the Artic Circle with script in hand, he noted the call for a “modern, classic, Scandi home,” he recalls. “I wanted to make it as cozy as possible—after all, we’re in a black comedy. I wanted it to be playful but sophisticated, with bold, simple shapes.” The result: cantilevered circular staircases, fractured angles, and sweeping glass walls wrapped inside a contemporary timber house.
The open-plan living room features a dramatic fireplace wall of ebonized wood to counterbalance the bright Pacific Ocean views. In a bit of movie magic, the ocean views were projected on a screen.
Courtesy of Mark Ricker/SearchlightFinding the right location proved problematic: While the movie is set in Mendocino, California, filming actually took place in the coastal British town of Salcombe in South Devon. The house was constructed on a soundstage platform at Pinewood Studios in London; its setting, perched atop a simulated cliff over the ocean, was projected onto a screen.
The house features dramatic rooflines, an open staircase, and stark angles, which take on a more ominous cast as the story progresses.
Courtesy of Mark Ricker/SearchlightRicker teamed with Oscar-nominated set decorator Jude Farr (The King’s Speech and Rocketman) to create the enviable home. “This was Mark’s absolute vision of the most idyllic house, and with Theo being an architect, he could really go to town,” Farr notes. While the house was Theo’s vision, Ivy’s identity as a chef meant she got her dream kitchen—with, most strikingly, a circular stairway leading to a wine cellar. “I knew I wanted that circular motif and rear kitchen stairs,” Ricker says. “I loved the idea of the wine cellar spiraling down like a corkscrew to tie it all together.”
Production designer Mark Ricker designed the circular staircase to the wine cellar to cleverly resemble a corkscrew, suggesting the spiraling pressure.
Courtesy of Mark Ricker/SearchlightDark marine-blue stained upper cabinets, oak lower cabinets, and pale oak floors pair with extra-thick Carrara marble countertops and backsplashes whose dramatic gray veining evokes sea foam crashing against rocks. At the center stands Ivy’s pride and joy, Julia Child’s stove from her early culinary days in Paris (Ricker also designed the 2009 film Julie & Julia). Farr looked to small character details to create tension, noting, “The kitchen was the only thing Ivy was allowed in the house, so I included little things she’d adore but Theo would hate,” like the kitschy 1920s and ’30s canisters housed in niches.
The designers recreated Julia Child’s stove from her early culinary days in France, which is Ivy’s most prized possession. Open shelving niches with dramatic backlighting showcase a bar and sculptural accessories.
Courtesy of Mark Ricker/SearchlightEvery room offers visual points of interest. In the dining room—host to an extremely memorable dinner party scene—Farr sourced a table that’s meant to be a Spanish Inquisition–era replica purchased by Theo. Prop master Thomas McCarron-Shipman added an essential twist: a hidden tabletop dagger. A showstopping Italian glass-orb chandelier commands center stage overhead.
A cut-out corner window along the backsplash brings in verdant slices of outdoor greenery. Deep navy upper cabinets contrast with oak lower cabinets and thick Carrara marble slab countertops. Niches hold quirky accessories of Ivy‘s, like vintage canisters.
Courtesy of Mark Ricker/SearchlightFarr describes the aesthetic of the living areas as “Scandinavian with a shot of American minimalism meets Ralph Lauren.” Theo’s cozy private study is filled with books and sheepskin-upholstered furniture set against wood-paneled walls. Though the palette is largely neutral, striped fabrics and bolder accent walls in the kitchen (deep blue) and living room (black for the fireplace) add interest. And in this dramatic coastal setting, a spacious, multilevel outdoor deck with a built-in conversation pit and firepit is de rigueur.
The kitchen opens onto the dining area, which offers a front-row seat to the captivating views. The antique table with an embedded dagger and the glam Italian chandelier become part of the action.
Courtesy of Mark Ricker/SearchlightAs the story darkens, so does the house. Ricker incorporated fractured angles, such as the window in the primary bedroom, that sometimes align and sometimes jar, evoking a subtle feeling of disorientation. “There was a sense of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” he explains. “I wanted it light, airy, and cozy—then, almost without realizing it, it becomes a house of horrors as they fight over it in the final scenes.”
In the luxe primary bedroom, fractured angles hint at the dynamic tension.
Courtesy of Mark Ricker/SearchlightOther standout sets include Ivy’s slyly named seaside restaurant, We’ve Got Crabs (in real life, it was the Winking Prawn restaurant in Salcombe, owned by the town’s mayor and untouched for three decades). For the fictional maritime museum—a keystone of Theo’s troubled career—the team converted a library in Reading, Berkshire, into a civic landmark, topping it with a full-scale ship.
In The Roses, the house is everything a dream home should be: idyllic, serene, and sophisticated—and worth fighting for.
Ivy’s charming coastal seafood restaurant, We’ve Got Crabs.
Jaap Buitendijk, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2025
