Where was The Money Pit (1986) filmed?

Production

Kathleen Turner was originally offered the role of Anna Crowley, but she declined in favor of The Jewel of the Nile.

Principal photography began on April 29, 1985, and initially ended on August 5, 1985.

Exterior shots used a relatively rundown house in Lattingtown, Long Island that had been built in 1898 in the Colonial style. After the film, it was purchased for $2.1 million in 2002. In November 2019, the Seattle PI reported that the Long Island house had "finally" sold for around $3.5 million, at a significant loss in relation to renovation costs.

Over Thanksgiving 1985, a new opening was shot on the Universal Studios lot.

The production designer, Patrizia Von Brandenstein, won the Academy Award for Art Direction for her work on Amadeus (1984) shortly before production began on The Money Pit. The nature of the action in dictated that the scenes be shot in order. The house sets were also built as modules that could easily be disassembled. Although Roger Ebert's review of the film was generally negative, he noted it was "a triumph of art direction. The Hollywood artisans who designed it deserve some sort of medal for the neat stunts they think up and the great tricks they’re able to pull. There is even one sustained Rube Goldberg-type gag that is really funny, as an incredible chain of events unfolds with meticulous precision."