For Only Murders in the Building fans, the third season has everything you could want: theatrics, intrigue, music—Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep, obviously. While murder is at the center of the hit Hulu show (it’s in the name, after all), there’s another element that can’t go overlooked: the building.
If you’ve started the season, you know Oliver’s (Martin Short) directing career takes center stage. The challenge of this when it comes to design, production designer Patrick Howe tells Better Homes and Gardens, was figuring out how to appease two kinds of viewers: television and theater.
“You have pure theater design as if you were an audience member in a theater, but then the other aspect is still regular television design, where the story is also being told through the camera,” Howe says. “And then the sort of half design element—or the third… would be essentially how to integrate the two of those. So it was important to me that the theater scenery on stage really looked faithful or realistic.”
From the Broadway stages to the penthouse of the infamous Arconia (which is a real building on New York City’s Upper West Side called The Belnord), Howe carefully considered how to world-build each set in a realistic way while keeping the characters’ personalities at the forefront.
Howe starts his design process based off of a short description or details from the script, like the dialogue or score. In the first episode, you see 10-year old Loretta (Streep plays the adult Loretta) watching the Broadway show No Strings with her mother, and he knew he had to reflect the emotion of what it’s like for an aspiring actress to realize her dreams of being on stage for the first time.
“In the case of No Strings, I had the score to listen to in the background with a very young Diahann Carroll having that debut role there,” he says. “There’s all kinds of aspirational and influential things in that source material to draw from. When it came to the setting, it was about these very romantic, pretty painted backdrops, and going with a pink and blue color scheme for Paris and the springtime—connecting to little girls, you can’t go wrong with that color way, not unlike today’s Barbie movie.”
Howe’s approach is all about making the scenery feel realistic, playing off of the emotions and lives of the characters, and having fun with it. If you look closely enough, you’ll find this in the details—especially when it comes to the personalities of each character’s living space.
Here’s what went into the making of the one-of-a-kind apartments you see on Only Murders, plus design tips for reflecting yourself in your home from Howe himself.
PATRICK HARBRON/HULU
The Third Penthouse
Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd) marks the third resident who’s taken over The Arconia penthouse (after Sting in season one and Amy Schumer in season two), and it’s notably Mabel’s (played by Selena Gomez) favorite version so far.
“The only information they had about that space, or that character, was: When it comes to his living space, open on a room saturated in a Hard Rock Cafe-amount of memorabilia, all focused on Ben Glenroy,” Howe says.
True to the Hard Rock, there’s a lot to take in when you first see Glenroy’s penthouse: a comically-large golden cobra in the doorway, pop art portraits of himself, snake sculptures—and even a few nods to Rudd himself (even though he never actually does a scene in that space), like photos from his bar mitzvah DJing days and framed Kansas City Chief jerseys on the walls.
“I always try to do realistic settings or settings that tell the story and reflect the character but are as entertaining or theatrical as they can be within a realistic foundation,” Howe says. “Because especially in comedies, the writing is what’s funny. Everything else should be as realistic as possible.”
While Glenroy’s excessive taste isn’t exactly the easiest style from the show to recreate, it’s a reminder to have fun with your space and add personal touches, whether it’s in the details or around every corner. Just be wary you don’t take it too far—a cobra statute probably isn’t necessary.
PATRICK HARBRON/HULU
Loretta’s Classic NYC Studio
When you picture a typical New York City studio, Loretta’s place is likely what would come to mind—pots and pans stored in the never-used oven, a Murphy bed, quirky trinkets and antiques on display. In episode 5 of the show, you get to see it when she invites Oliver over for a dinner of pork chops (which she usually cooks in the microwave).
“It’s extremely modest and extremely small,” Howe says. “But that character of Loretta, played by the amazing Meryl—you don’t have to talk about her acting abilities, but the amount of layers and depth that she can bring to any character. I wanted to reflect that in the personality of the decor of her apartment.”
Living in New York comes with a few distinctions you won’t find in other cities: a dish in the entryway for all the keys you have to carry around (every New Yorker has a ton of keys, Howe explains), a collection of tote bags hanging on a door, a table covered in bills and papers.
PATRICK HARBRON/HULU
You also have to get creative with making the most of your square footage while still giving your space a charming feel. Loretta’s apartment features eccentric wallpaper, yellow curtains, personal photos in frames, packed shelves, and cookware hanging on the kitchen walls.
“There are ways to maintain it and keep it nice and attractive, and it’s usually about being very clever about the square footage and all your storage—how to have hidden storage and things like that,” Howe says. “So you’ll see some raised platform areas that have built-in dressers and things underneath them and bookcases that pull away from the wall to offer more running feet for books. In [Loretta’s] case she’s storing a lot of scripts and things.”
PATRICK HARBRON/HULU
Mabel’s (Finally) Finished Apartment
In the first episode, you find out Mabel is finally selling her aunt’s apartment. She’s painted over the mural, there are actual walls, it’s fully furnished—it’s all a reflection on how she’s grown and moving forward with her life.
“I was looking forward to a makeover of Mabel’s because it had two seasons of being introduced as an un-renovated and raw—a gutted, raw apartment space,” Howe says. “That setup was really supporting the character at the time where we’re establishing Mabel as an artist sort of lost in her career or what she wants to do.”
But her newly refurbished apartment, while undeniably beautiful, doesn’t really fit the Mabel viewers have gotten to know.
When designing her space, Howe channeled current styles of showroom floors: bouclé fabric, high-end finishes, curvy and organic-shaped furniture, modern wallpapers. He also kept it very bright and neutral, which definitely veers from Mabel’s usual taste—she loves mixing moody colors and patterns. Howe explained that because she’s moving out, he wanted the style to appeal to potential future residents.
PATRICK HARBRON/HULU
“[It’s] attractive, elegant, and upscale, but completely a knock on the personality of Mabel,” he says. “And hopefully the viewers that know the show and have their own opinion and understanding of who Mabel is, or has been up to this point, and how she dresses and things—hopefully, they'll go, ‘Oh, that’s very pretty—but boy, that doesn’t seem like Mabel to me.’”
Wallpaper plays a starring role in all of the apartments, but especially in Mabel’s. Howe has noticed a renaissance of wallpaper in the past few years, and he tries to go as bold as possible with the color and pattern in each space that still feels realistic to the character. He describes Mabel’s as a “calmness and neutrality but with a little bit of flair,” referencing the wallpaper in her foyer: a patterned gold on a shiny background.
“The former version symbolized [Mabel] being sort of more lost or searching for purpose,” Howe says. “And when we opened this season with this brand new, fresh, renovated apartment, it certainly affects the more grown up … Mabel.”
Design Cues to Take from Only Murders
Howe’s suggestion for your first design step, whether it’s a set or your home? Determine which feeling you want to evoke. Whether it’s a sense of peace and serenity in your bedroom or a warm and inviting kitchen, once you pinpoint the energy, you can start to focus on other elements like decor pieces, color schemes, and fabrics.
“I always start with a goal of what kind of mood you want to create, whether it’s a message for yourself or your guests, or whoever’s gonna see your living space,” Howe says. “Then you can make choices from that. Go ahead and put together a mood board of things that speak to you and help tell that story.”
When you feel confident in the overall aesthetic, the fun part comes with bringing it to life. Howe strongly believes in secondhand shopping—even if you don’t buy anything, perusing garage sales and flea markets opens up a world of ideas from different generations, styles, and tastes.
While shopping from mass-produced stores and basing your design choices off of what you see online can get you a cohesive, on-trend look, it probably won’t feel like you.
“Whether you wind up taking a paint color from a stripe of fabric in a sofa that you bought, or the one silly, goofy lamp that reminds you of your childhood, there’s no end when you can personalize your shopping,” Howe says.
Vintage, used pieces almost always feature a distinctive personality: from the shape of a chair to the shade of a wooden table. And if there’s anything you take from the design of the Only Murders characters’ apartments, it’s that your space feels the most authentic when it reflects where you are in your life—even if you’re still figuring it out.