PRIOR LAKE, Minn. — When Kirstie Alley died from colon cancer in December, fans came out in droves on social media to pay homage to the actor and remember her in their favorite roles.
From her award-winning performance as Rebecca Howe on “Cheers” to starring alongside John Travolta in “Look Who’s Talking,” Alley spent decades becoming a household name on both the silver and small screens.
But if you ask a select band of movie-loving Minnesotans, they’re likely to agree it was Alley’s role as Gladys Leeman in 1999’s “Drop Dead Gorgeous” that reigns as the most iconic role of them all.
For those unfamiliar with the film, “Drop Dead Gorgeous” is considered a cult mockumentary, boasting some of Hollywood’s biggest names: Denise Richards, Amy Adams, Kirsten Dunst, Brittany Murphy and Allison Janney — to name a few.
The story takes place in small-town Mount Rose, Minnesota (Home of Freda Hegstrom, Minnesota's Oldest Living Lutheran) as it follows an eclectic group of women competing in the town’s annual beauty pageant, vying for the coveted title of American Teen Princess (“Making American teens beautiful for over 50 years!”).
Alley’s character, Gladys, plays the mother of Becky Leeman (Denise Richards), a teen hoping to follow in her mother’s footsteps by becoming the next American Teen Princess.
If you’re a local, you might recognize some locations where filming took place — Eden Prairie Center, Jordan’s Wagner Bros. Orchard and Bakery, Wayzata Middle and Junior High Schools, among others — but perhaps one of the movie’s most-famed scenes involves a location only a few have actually visited: inside the Leeman home.
Turns out, that home, and grandiose staircase in which Alley descends, still stands about 20 minutes southwest of Minneapolis on its original two-and-a-half-acre plot of land in Prior Lake.
Enter: the Goldfarb family.
After hearing the news about Alley, Gerry Goldfarb said he posted a photo on Facebook, posing with his family on those stairs in tribute to the late actor.
“It's kind of sentimental to think that she actually was in our house and on our stairs,” said Gerry Goldfarb.
The Goldfarbs moved into the house on Greenview Court in the summer of 2021, the third family to reside in the home since it was built in 1995. As Goldfarb and his wife spent time house-hunting, he said it was she who first fell in love with the unique home.
“She’s an interior designer, and when we first saw the house, she called me and was like, ‘You need to come see this house,’” Goldfarb said. “It was a dream come true for her because she loves different architecture.”
But even before the Goldfarbs’ love affair with the house, there were the Pieris, who were most drawn to its beauty on the inside.
John Pieri said its little-known cinematic history was a bonus.
“It was actually one of the first things he [the realtor] said,” Pieri said. “We went up the staircase because that's the focal point — it's an amazing staircase.”
The year was 2004, and in an exceptional twist of fate, Pieri, a longtime physical education and health teacher in Lakeville, said his family bought the home that just so happened to have been owned by some very familiar faces.
“When we bought the place, I knew the name, and I’m like, ‘I wonder if it’s the same — it was the same family that I had their kids in class,” Pieri said.
The name, Bonnett, belonged to the family that first manifested the Southern-style home, which flaunts giant, palatial pillars, floor-to-ceiling windows, and yes, that iconic staircase. So special was the Bonnett home, the family patriarch — who custom designed the residence, drawing inspiration from one of his favorite movies, "Gone with the Wind" — decided to submit it for consideration in Minnesota TV & Film, a nonprofit organization that aims to support the local production industry.
“My dad randomly submitted our house,” said Heidi Bonnett Johnson, who lived there at the time of filming. “We randomly got a call one day and they said our house was what they were looking for. We couldn't believe it. It was a pretty unique house so I guess it was just the style they had in mind.”
Johnson, an elementary school student at the time, said she remembers the experience as a three-day ordeal. The first day was reserved for set up, the second, for filming, and the third for tearing down and cleaning up. She said the actors and crew filled her home on that second day, inviting the family to come inside and sit on those soon-to-be famous stairs to sit and watch it all come together.
“We sat outside for most of it but we did get to come inside, sit on the stairs and watch them film for about 10 minutes,” she said. “That was so cool and we were so grateful they let us do that.”
Johnson says her family did leave a mark on the movie, though, as most of their own furniture was staged and combined with props specifically curated for the film.
“They also took all of my bedroom furniture out of my room and moved it to another house to film in,” she said. “I think they actually converted one of my neighbor's garages into a bedroom when they were filming the ‘interviews’ in the movie.”
She added, “Overall, it was such a fun and unique experience. That was my childhood home and it's so cool that I can go back and see it by putting on that movie.”
Although the families didn’t buy the house because it’s famous, they’re now part of the history of the most famous home in fictional Mount Rose.
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