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Collinwood Mansion - Collinwood was the eerie
haunted mansion on the daytime occult serial DARK SHADOWS/ABC/1966-71.
Collinwood Mansion at Sunset
Located atop Widow's Hill,
Collinwood is a 40-room mansion with turrets, stained-glass windows, high
arching doorways near the town of Collinsport, Maine that overlooks
a rocky, waved-tossed coastline on the Atlantic Ocean The
mansion was built in 1795 by Joshua Collins, the ancestor of
Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), a 200-year-old vampire who is now the mansion's
primary inhabitant in the 20th century. Throughout this mysterious edifice there
are secret passages and weird staircases that act as portals to
other times.
"My name is Victoria Winters. My journey is beginning - a journey that I hope
will open the doors of life to me and link my past with my future. A journey
that will bring me to a strange and dark place to the edge of the sea high atop
Widow's Hill; a house called Collinwood. A world I've never known, with people
I've never met. People, who tonight are still only shadows in my mind but who
will soon fill the days and nights of my tomorrow..." -- First episode
narration
Throughout the series and subsequent spin-off movies, a number of Connecticut,
Maine, New York and Rhode Island area buildings and terrain were
used to represent the Collinwood estate and its surrounding areas.
- The Carey Mansion in Newport County, Rhode Island was used as
Collinwood Mansion. The Carey Mansion (formerly called "Seaview Terrace") was
purchased by Martin Carey in 1974. Parts of the mansion are now leased by
Salve Regina University.
- The town of Essex,
Connecticut represented the coastal town of Collinsport.
- The Three Bear's
Inn in Westport, Connecticut was The Collinsport Inn.
- The Lockwood-Mathews mansion
in Norwalk, Connecticut was the setting for the abandoned Monastery on St
Eustace Island.
- The Spratt House (known to fans of DS as "The
Old House"), a mansion on the
Lyndhurst Estate of Tarrytown, New York was seen on the series. It was destroyed
by fire in 1969.
- The Lyndhurst Stables were used as Matthew Morgan's cottage and the
Collinwood garages.
- Kennebunkport, Maine served as the site for the wave-tossed rocks and
cliffs seen in the opening credits.
- Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in New York, not very far from the Lyndhurst
Mansion, was also seen on the series. The 90-acres landmark is famous for as
the burial site of Washington Irving, the author of "The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow."
The Lyndhurst Mansion (known to fans of DS as "The New House"), a forbidding,
limestone Gothic Revival country house (named because of the many Linden trees on the
estate) served as Collinwood in the two MGM movies House of Dark
Shadows (1970) and Night of Dark Shadows (1971). The Lyndhurst Mansion
is located on a 67-acre-park in Tarrytown, New York beside the Hudson River.
Interior
shots for the original series were taped at ABC Studio 16, located on 433 West
53rd Street, New York, NY 10019, between 9th and 10th Avenue.
The eerie Collinwood Mansion and Barnabas Collins
Fans of Collinwood revisited the eerie estate on the revival series DARK
SHADOWS/ABC/1991 when actor Ben Cross took over the role of the reluctant
bloodsucker, Barnabas Collins. The show's new prime time budget enabled Dan
Curtis, the original producer of the series to create a moodier, sexier and more
violent show with elaborate sets and special effects.
Most of the new series was shot at Greystone Mansion, a 55-room home built in
1927-28 by oil baron Edward Doheny (now owned by the City of Beverly Hills)
located at 905 Loma Vista Drive, north of Sunset Boulevard.
You may have seen the home in the motion picture The Witches of Eastwick (1987); or the TV miniseries
WINDS OF WAR/ABC/1983 and WAR AND REMEMBRANCE/ABC/1988.
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