Residents of the ‘Beetlejuice’ Town Used the Abandoned Deetz House for Scrap Wood
As further evidence of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’s massive success, Airbnb has partnered with Warner Bros. to create a full-scale replica of the Deetz family’s wacky house, complete with the Maitlands’ detailed town model, a gateway to the afterlife, and knowing Airbnb, a whole bunch of hidden cameras to film you going to the bathroom, we assume.
The house, modified to suit Deelia Deetz’s unique artistic tastes, is a unique cinematic character in its own right. So it makes sense that Airbnb would want to recreate it for fans to explore/have sex in. But what about the original Deetz/Maitland house? Well, it wasn’t actually a real house, just a facade that was erected in East Corinth, Vermont, the town that stood in for the fictional Winter River, Connecticut. And it had to be constructed for a second time during the production of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
As for the very first house, built for the 1988 film, it was apparently just abandoned after filming ended and used for scrap wood by locals.
As Smithsonian Magazine reported in 2018, the fake house, which East Corinth residents referred to as “the castle,” was built on farmland belonging to a local named Paula Jewell. What happened to it? Apparently, the filmmakers left it behind for the Jewell family to deal with. “My nephew took it down. My brother took some of it, built a little shed,” Jewell told the publication.
Yeah, people in East Corinth were never too sure that the leftover remnants from the Beetlejuice production would be considered rare pieces of movie memorabilia. I mean, you wouldn’t build a shed out of the sled from Citizen Kane, would you? Jewell also admitted that she found Beetlejuice “too crazy.”
The house wasn’t the only prop that was tossed aside either. The town museum collected a half-dozen “fiberglass headstones” that had been “created for the town’s faux graveyard.” Before they ended up in the museum, “people would leave them in their yards as jokes.”
Beetlejuice fans also proved to be a bit of a challenge for property owners, flocking to the town in search of filming locations, and knocking on random doors in search of bathrooms. When one couple inquired about getting married on the site of the Deetz house, Jewell replied, “No way.”
Keep in mind, this was back in 2018, when the possibility of a Beetlejuice sequel seemed about as likely as Tim Burton running a comb through his hair. But now that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has been released, East Corinth is bracing itself for a “tourism boom.”
Although fans may be disappointed to learn that the house has been dismantled since the sequel wrapped. And as far as we know, it hasn’t been turned into a pergola, or a deck, or even an outhouse.
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