Yes, Season 3

The Fifteenth Witch: Literature From Page to Screen: Yes, Season 3: Mayfair Witches Season 3 AMC/Immortal Universe Just the other day, I was on Facebook, looking at what, exactly, I don't recall as nothi...

Season 3?

The Fifteenth Witch: Literature From Page to Screen: Season 3?: La Parlor's Mayfair Witches Key Fountain So far, there has been no word on whether or not there will be a Season 3 of Mayfair Witches o...

Episode 8 - The Innocents

The Fifteenth Witch: Literature From Page to Screen: Episode 8 - The Innocents: Mayfair Witches S02 E08 AMC Networks Again, get comfortable.  Bring a wedding feast, airline peanuts, whatever you've got.  This is ano...

Episodes 6 & 7 - Michaelmas and A Tangled Web

The Fifteenth Witch: Literature From Page to Screen: Episodes 6 & 7 - Michaelmas and A Tangled Web: Mayfair Witches S02 E06 & 07 AMC Networks This is a long one.  Get comfortable, bring a wedding feast...

A Bit of Review During the Break

The Fifteenth Witch: Literature From Page to Screen: A Bit of Review During the Break: Mayfair Witches in 2 Weeks, AMC While Super Bowl Sunday was in progress in New Orleans, AMC did not air a new episode of Mayfair Witches. ...

Episode 5 - Julien's Victrola

The Fifteenth Witch: Literature From Page to Screen: Episode 5 - Julien's Victrola: Mayfair Witches S02 E05 AMC Networks From IMDb: Rowan demands Julien's help in finding Lasher; Moira probes Cortland's mind for imp...

Episode 4 - Double Helix

The Fifteenth Witch: Literature From Page to Screen: Episode 4 - Double Helix: Mayfair Witches S02 E04 AMC Networks Originally posted Sat, Feb 1, 2025 @ 9:40 am From IMDb: Rowan must find Lasher in order to right her w...

Episode 3 - Cover the Mirrors

The Fifteenth Witch: Literature From Page to Screen: Episode 3 - Cover the Mirrors: Mayfair Witches S02 E03 AMC Networks From IMDb: Rowan desperately partners with Cortland to try to stop Lasher; Moira assists Sip in captur...

Episode 2 - Ten of Swords

The Fifteenth Witch: Literature From Page to Screen: Episode 2 - Ten of Swords: Mayfair Witches S02 E02 AMC Networks From IMDb: Rowan must find Lasher before more people are hurt; Sip finds an ally in an angry Mayfair c...

Episode 1 - Lasher

The Fifteenth Witch: Literature From Page to Screen: Episode 1 - Lasher: Mayfair Witches Season 2 (Image: AMC) Season 2 Premieres From IMDb: Rowan Mayfair is determined to understand what Lasher has become; Sip i...

Mayfair Witches Onscreen

One Month Season 1 Countdown From 2022

(Moved from GoDaddy)

At the top of Chronicles of the Mayfair Witches, you have no doubt seen a countdown timer.  Countdowns seem to be a "thing" these days.  Why?  Dunno.

But I decided to put one up anyway.

The countdown is how much longer until Season 2 of Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches premieres on AMC.  It premieres on January 5, 2025.

I haven't spent much time talking about the series in the last few months because I've been preoccupied with technical details.  And I do mean technical.  Hopefully, the result is all things are functional with nothing functioning in the background that I don't know about.  It's rude.

What I want to focus on now is the pages of the Mayfair Witches Parlor that discuss the AMC series.  You can find them from here, Chronicles of the Mayfair Wtiches, by scrolling to Mayfair Witches From Page to Screen.  The image there, the one of Rowan becoming entangled in the rose vines as if they're reaching out from the wallpaper to entangle her, is one of the promotional images from Season 1.  It's also one of my favorites because it really does illustrate the way the legacy of the Mayfair Witches ensnares Rowan.  

It has been nearly 30 years since I first read these novels, and they left a lasting impression me for several reasons.  The TV series is obviously very new and very recent in this timeline.  It is also being released in a time very different than the ones the books were first published in.  One of the first things that jumped out at me was the confusion over the Garden District house used as the Mayfair Witches house in the novels versus the TV series.  To me, it's basic knowledge that Anne Rice used her own then-home, the Brevard-Rice house at 1239 First Street in New Orleans, as the house Rowan Mayfair inherited from her mother, Deirdre, that she and Michael Curry restore and live in.  When Season 1 first premiered, people commented that the house used in the show, the Soria-Creel house, sure looked like Anne Rice's former home.  

Yes, there are several houses in the Garden District that are built like American townhouses with Greek Revival-Italianate architecture.  Of course, they have the iconic iron lace the porches and galleries of New Orleans are famous for.  Each has its own style, its own colors, and even the basic layouts have their own unique differences.  Depending on where they are, many of the houses have grounds of different sizes.  

In the case of the Brevard-Rice house, one of the features that is fairly unique to it is the fact that the columns along the front of the house are of different styles.  I'll have to go back and check, but I did read once that when the house was being built, Albert Brevard wanted those particular styles of columns because he liked both styles.  Therefore, he decided the columns along the front of his new home would feature both styles.  The end result was, of course, that there are three different styles.

Another architectural tidbit about 1239 First Street is that the library and master bedroom were added later.  Elizabeth Brevard sold the house to Emory Clapp in or about 1869, ten years after her father's death.  It was Emory Clapp who hired the original architects, James Calrow and Charles Pride, to add the library and master bedroom.  Clapp died in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1880.  Of what, I've not been able to find out, but it's possible he died of tuberculosis, as Colorado Springs was known for its tuberculosis sanitariums beginning around that period.  Emory Clapp and his wife, who remained in the house until her death in 1934, are entombed in Metairie Cemetery, which is where Anne Rice is entombed with her husband and daughter.

If you look at a 1990 first edition hard cover print of The Witching Hour, look at the title pages.  You will see a sketch of the house, which is very clearly the house Anne Rice owned and lived in, 1239 First Street in New Orleans.  The Trade paperback edition of the novel was released in November 1991 and has the same sketch.  I have a Trade paperback copy of the novel from that time with the sketch in it.  The Mass Market edition of the novel was released in May 1993 and features the house on its cover with the lightning around it.  

If that doesn't settle the question of whether or not Anne Rice used her own home as the setting of the Mayfair house that Rowan inherited in her novels, I don't know what will.

Speaking of the novel versus the screen, I began a list of comparisons between specific things in the TV series that were different than the novels.  That list should be on the page of the Parlor that is linked on the page you can find this blog on.  I know--CONFUSING.  It's hard to rebuild a site like mine on today's tools if you're not a business.

Anyway.

I'd intended to rewatch Season 1 so I could complete my list of comparisons.  Christmas is pretty quiet around here, so why not hole up and binge watch...something?  At least, until it's time for the yearly marathon of A Christmas Story...

The Mayfair House--A 3D Update

I thought it was time I provided an update on my project, a 3D model of the Mayfair house on First Street.  There are some details I've added, some obvious, some not so obvious.  This update shows only part of the first floor, and there are certainly details I've not gotten to yet.  One is that there appears to be a door or window on the end of the butler's pantry that faces the pool and patio area of the garden.

The Pink Room: The Master Bedroom

This is REALLY pink everywhere!  Hopefully, I will soon be able to reduce the amount of pink in the master bedroom.  In the meantime, this is the first room on the second floor I've worked on.  Quite a lot of progress on the room has been made already...

The Mayfair Witches in 3D

 

Now that I've been able to build (for the most part) a 3D model of the Mayfair house with interiors that can be shown even while the entire house is incomplete, I'm turning more attention to...the Mayfair Witches themselves! 

I've included this image and some details about its creation on both Come Into My Parlor In 3D and The Face of Come Into My Parlor's Mayfair Witches.  I am working on some other models of the Mayfair Witches alongside the ongoing 1239 First Street in 3D project.  From what I can tell, it looks like the Witches themselves are what people really want to see.  I can't disagree with that!

That is my ultimate goal--to create the Mayfair Witches as Anne Rice described them.  As we begin to look toward a possible Season 2 of Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches on AMC (actual status unknown), I am reminded that reactions to Season 1 were most definitely mixed.  People either really loved it or really hated it.  Some of the most important main characters were missing completely, there were jumps from one plot line to another that made no sense, among other things.  Most of all, there was a diversion from the source material (the novels themselves) that was too much of a diversion and made people ask a number of times, "Did the writers even READ the books?!"

To be fair, The Witching Hour is a long book.  It's challenging to bring a book so long with four different parts to it to the screen, even as a television series.  There is so much material there that I would imagine it's hard to determine what to somehow translate to the screen and what not to.  I don't know; I am not a filmmaker.  

One thing I keep meaning to do is to expand more on the differences between the books and the series so far.  There are some things from the series that I actually loved seeing, because they did give me a new feel for the atmosphere of the settings of the story.  Another was that Suzanne, the village midwife of Donnelaith, Scotland and the first Mayfair Witch, was brought to the screen.  Then, though I was confused about a few details at first, there was the inclusion of the Mayfair Emerald as a literal key.  Which, symbolically speaking, is what the Mayfair Emerald was.

I decided to limit what I included from the series in the model itself.  One thing I did decide to do, since recreating the mural on the walls of the dining room would be a challenge, was to find a suitable panoramic image for the mural.  Also, I would include framed portraits of each of the Mayfair Witches on the walls of the dining room, which is what was done in the AMC series.  

One of the photographs Rowan finds in Ciprien Grieve's cellphone is an old one that appears to have been taken in the 1920's.  Guess who that has to be?  Yes.  Stella.  The novels refer to photos taken of Stella's Roaring Twenties parties in the Mayfair house, including the last party she threw before her murder in the parlor of the house in 1929.  Photos are mentioned again in connection with some pearls and a Victrola once owned by Julien Mayfair.  The photos were also of Stella and others, like Ancient Evelyn as a young woman.

That photo is one you'll no doubt see tucked in somewhere.  The other photos and portraits, such as the ones seen in the opening credits mounted on crumbling walls with twisted branches of the family tree, I think are one of the ways the Mayfair Witches' tale has spanned generations of this family.  Indeed, there is a lot of interest in the Mayfair family tree. 

But let's get back to The Witching Hour.  As stated, it is a long book.  I understand cast members themselves read the books and are longtime fans of Anne Rice.  At the same time, reading a book that long, with so much in it, seems to be something some readers struggle with.  That's not a criticism of them as readers, however.  The book has so much in it that it can be hard to keep the flow of the story in mind while reading.

This might be a bit overdue, but perhaps it's time the Parlor devoted extra space and time to a more detailed discussion of The Witching Hour?  

In fact, I was just reading through parts of it last night when I came across a section I had been meaning to review anyway.  The reason being that I have been working on other parts of the Mayfair house and needed to review details on a few things in it so they will be accurate in the model.  As to what that might be, I'll give you a hint.

It's something that has me doing yet another search to see if I can find architectural details of the second floor of the Mayfair house.  I want to make sure the master bedroom door is in the correct location...

A (Belated) Mayfair Christmas Dinner In 3D

If you read the description of the video, you will see that this particular video is now the single most difficult I have ever made.  Not because Christmas dinners make me cry (they don't), but because of numerous problems with software, which still gave me grief even AFTER I upgraded it. 

Now, I understand that now that it's upgraded, there are some more things it is now capable of doing.  Well, that's good, because the next thing I'm gonna work on is my Dammit Doll, and I'm gonna animate it and it's gonna look great being banged on something somewhere in the 3D house--

Anyway.

Before sitting down at the table, please give your cellphones to Tante Oscar, and she'll put 'em in the fridge for ya.  Bring it to the table, and someone gave that kid over there a remote control F14 fighter with little bitty projectiles and all and it's got this remote control so I'm borrowing it in case--

Oops!  

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and wishing you all a happy New Year!

The Mayfair Witches Dining Room

As Thanksgiving is near, I thought I would put together an update on the 3D model of the Mayfair house at 1239 First Street focusing on the dining room.  The actual dining room has a panoramic mural that continues along the walls, and in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches, this mural is described as being that of Riverbend Plantation.  This plantation is where the Mayfair Witches settled upon their arrival in Louisiana after having fled Saint-Domingue on the eve of the Haitian Revolution.

Replicating such a mural turned out to be just about impossible, so instead, I found a panorama of a Louisiana bayou.  For some reason, this just made the room "feel" more like the Mayfair Witches' dining room.  In the dining hutch, which is from the 3D model of the Addams house by Demilune, instead of a mirror, I found a rendering of Belle Grove Plantation, which was located in Iberville Parish, Louisiana.  

This is not the dining room of the AMC series, but I did manage to tuck in some of the pomegranate patterned wallpaper in the butlers' pantry, which you get a brief glimpse of.  However, I did put up some framed Mayfair Witches' portraits in this dining room.

The place settings, the dishes and the displays are inspired by Rowan and Michael's exploration of the Mayfair house the day after Deirdre Mayfair's funeral.  I've always loved that tour they took.  Then, there are the candles...

Happy Halloween! A Parlor Special...

Happy Halloween!

This is perhaps the only time of year I feel is appropriate for unveiling this particular 3D model of mine.  It is the Mayfair tomb, which is set to be located in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans.

Here is each Mayfair Witch at her crypt, which for a number of them would only be cenotaphs.  Respects can still be paid though.

Let's have a look at the mystery of the doorway and the thirteen...

You can also see this video on the Come Into My Parlor In 3D page of the Parlor

3D Model Goes Inside First Street

 

I am all kinds of excited!  I've finally gotten to a point in the project where I can provide a major update on its progress!  Much more detail has been added to the 3D model of 1239 First Street.

Now, this model is by no means finished.  I have focused a lot on structural details, like the crown mouldings, baseboards, porches, etc.  It's tough to get plain old paint to look right in a house like this, and I cannot imagine how I am going to somehow get the dining room walls to feature the murals (or any murals) the actual house has.  

Not only is the scale of the house quite massive, but the staircase is a lot more narrow and steep than what you would find in houses built in our lifetimes.  The cornices have also been quite a challenge and those are definitely not done yet!

You will see wallpaper in the rooms shown.  You might even recognize some of the wallpaper used.  One Mayfair Witches fan managed to find samples of the wallpaper used for the interior of the Mayfair house in the AMC series.  The dining room is one of those rooms.  If I can't figure out how to get a mural onto the walls in that room, I'll use the wallpaper sample that most closely shows the colors of the mural.  I'll also put the portraits of the Mayfair Witches on the dining room walls as well.  Some are already there.

They might not have the same frames in the finished version that they do now, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

One other thing from the AMC series is one of the photographs Rowan finds in Ciprien's cellphone.  On closer inspection, it is clearly of one of Stella's Roaring Twenties parties.  Photos like this were also mentioned in The Witching Hour, so I've included it here as well. 

In this update, I focused a lot on displaying smaller 3D models inspired by the novels and/or items from the novels.  You will also see one of the maps from The Witches' Companion by Katherine Ramsland displayed in the model.  

I love a good Easter egg, and this 3D model will be no different.  Very, very briefly (for now) are glimpses of a portrait of a woman in the double parlor.  This portrait is from the real life history of 1239 First Street, a portrait of Pamela Starr Clapp.  Her husband, Emory Clapp, bought the house for her as a wedding gift from Elizabeth Brevard, the daughter of the original owner, Albert Hamilton Brevard.  If I recall, Pamela Starr Clapp, who lived in the house from 1869 to her death in 1934, loved her home.  And...she is rumored to haunt the house, probably to this day.

So, I wanted to include a portrait of her in the model as well.  

Are there pictures of Anne Rice in the model?

Does a bear sh--yes, there is one, so far.  The one on the wall is one of my favorites of her.  I do want to include more, though.  Because all of this came from her, and I want the model to ultimately showcase and celebrate what she created.

In The Witching Hour, Rowan Mayfair set about having a "state of the art" phone system installed due to the house being so big.  Phones are phones, but should I reach a point where I do add the kitchen, there is one contribution that must be made.  

The phone in the kitchen will be found in the refrigerator. 

To view the short video, you may go to Come Into My Parlor In 3D or you may view it on the Parlor's YouTube channel...

Details of the Double Parlor

 I was looking at the photos of the double parlor at 1239 First Street that had been taken in the 1930s and in 1964 earlier.  Every detail I focus on says even more that houses like this one are unique.  Even though they're something of an architectural polyglot.  Even the fireplaces are interesting!

Some of the fireplaces in the house were described in The Witching Hour as having been fitted for gas.  The ones in the double parlor seem to have been coal burning fireplaces.  In the picture from 1964, there is what looks like a coal bin by one of the two fireplaces.  And it showed how it is that one can have a working fireplace right next to a tall window with very elegant drapes RIGHT next to it.

The walls sticks out a bit.  Oops.  Fixed that.

I managed to get the crown mouldings around the wall that extends out a bit for the fireplace.  More specifically, the chimney behind the wall.  I took out the wood and flames as these fireplaces don't seem to be for burning wood.  If I'm not mistaken, the fireboxes would be a lot bigger than they are.

Creating the arch that partitions this long, cavernous room into two sides, hence the name "double parlor", has been something of a challenge.  This, too, is ornate, and upon closer inspection, one detail goes even further to make this arch somehow divide the room is the fact that the crown mouldings run along both sides of the arch.  

Like this:

Look in the top right corner of the image above.

I've added a chandelier as a sort of place holder, but the actual chandeliers and medallions are larger than the ones you see in the model so far.  Finding mirrors massive enough was another challenge, but hopefully, I can modify these or make mirrors that will be closer to the ones in the actual house.

The mirrors seem to be part of the house, since they seem to have remained in it despite the house having had several owners over the course of its existence.  They make me think of the "white ballroom" at Nottoway Plantation.  As I understand it, John Randolph had had the ballroom painted white so that, like a modern art gallery, the colorful gowns he anticipated his daughters wearing to what sounds like a debutant ball would be more obvious and dazzling.  

The mirrors were so that his daughters and/or other guests could discreetly check themselves to make sure nothing was out of place and they didn't look ridiculous.  Obviously, this house is a townhouse in the Garden District, but looking closely at old photos of the double parlor tends to say a lot about the function of the room.

One can see a couch and chairs around a coffee table in one corner of the room, and a small table and chairs at another part of the room.  There is what could possibly be a writing desk, a shelf for displaying knick knacks...  For the Mayfairs, one end of the room would have a Bösendorfer piano.

Just reading accounts of Stella Mayfair's Roaring Twenties parties, and Rowan and Michael's wedding reception sixty years later both being held in the same double parlor says this is a room meant for entertaining.  With that many people coming and going, it makes sense for those massive sash windows to also function as doors if necessary.  

As I was looking at the pictures of the double parlor from the 1930s, I decided I wanted to really look closely at the pictures to see what sorts of items had been in the room.  And where.

There seems to have been furniture arrangements like the more orderly photos from 1964, but I got the impression that the room hadn't really been used much by the time the pictures were taken in the 1930s.  I could be wrong, but it looked to me like there was something of a hoard of things just set in the room and left wherever they were thumped down first.  Looking at the history of the house, the pictures would have been taken at or about the time Pamela Clapp passed away (1934).

Her husband, Emory Clapp, had purchased the house for her as a wedding gift around 1869.  He had bought it from Elizabeth Brevard, the daughter of Albert Hamilton Brevard, who was the original owner.  Emory Clapp died around 1884, and Pamela, who apparently loved her home, remained in it until her own death decades later.  Considering her advanced age at the time of her death, I can see how she might not have been able to manage the house as she once had.  

If you look at the image of the double parlor taken from the entrance closest to the front door in 1964, look carefully at the picture on the wall.  The one by the fireplace.  There is something very interesting that I had never realized was there before.  It looks like it might be a portrait of a woman standing beside what looks like that same fireplace the portrait hangs next to.

Pictures like this are excellent for giving us a better idea of the scale and proportion of the house.  Anyone know if this is a picture taken in 1239 First Street's double parlor?

The Mayfair House--First Street

There has been a lot of interest in the Mayfair house since the premiere of the AMC series.  So, I've added a few things to Inside First Street and House of Patterns.

 

The video above has been on Inside First Street for many years.  It is still there, but now, instead of this video by itself, you will see a YouTube playlist in its place, with the video as the thumbnail.  There are about 5 videos in the playlist so far, including this one.  

Near the bottom of House of Patterns is another embedded video.  The video by StudioSims Create, which is also on YouTube, is in French.  It is a Sims model of the Mayfair house, and it includes the garden and pool!  I put it on this particular page because it might be fun to compare the model with the plans of the Mayfair house!

I began a 3D model of the Mayfair house using SketchUp Pro a couple years ago.  You can see a section of the Parlor model in the memorial video, but I might put some clips from it together so you can see the model on its own.  Hopefully, I'll get that done soon.  

Eventually, I'd like to put together some information on the Mayfair house of the AMC series, the Soria-Creel house.  It would be more of an historical survey and discussion of the structural elements of the house.  It would also be a comparison to the house at 1239 First Street so fans of the books and/or the AMC series will be able to distinguish the two houses from one another...