Sartaj Singh
‘The Baxters’ revolves around members of the Baxter family and how they live their lives through faith and family values while supporting each other in times of need. Elizabeth and John Baxter have five adult children, of whom Kari has discovered that her professor husband, Tim, is cheating on her with a student. While Kari grapples with an onslaught of emotions, her family stands by her and helps her see God’s light in a dark time. As Kari drifts further from Tim, she meets a handsome love interest, Ryan, who promises to provide her with everything lacking in her relationship.
Right as she begins to move on, Tim returns to her, wanting to save their marriage. With gentle guidance from her family, Kari must determine whether to work on her marriage and if love is a choice that she can make. Based on the novel series by Karen Kingsbury, showrunner Jessie Rosen helms the Amazon Prime Video family sitcom. Set in a quaint suburban neighborhood, the sitcom shifts through various everyday backdrops, with a stately church standing out among them. For fans of the show, these backdrops could spark interest in investigating the real-world locations behind them.
The Baxters Filming Locations
‘The Baxters’ is primarily filmed across neighborhoods in urban Los Angeles County, California. Principal photography for the show began in late March of 2018, and the first season was wrapped up in a little over three weeks by April 15 2018. Author Kingsbury was delighted to see her work brought to life and became emotional upon seeing reenactments of scenes playing out similar to how she had imagined them in the book.
“I could not stop crying,” she wrote in the caption of a picture she shared on Instagram. “Overwhelmed with quiet, happy tears just streaming down my face… because it was literally like I had been dropped into my scene in the book.” Despite shooting long hours on set with their tight filming schedule, the cast and crew remained enthusiastic, with the lead cast sharing lighthearted moments behind the scenes through social media. Allow us to take you through some of the filming sites that can be observed in the series.
Los Angeles County, California
Encapsulating diverse and picturesque landscapes that have fueled Hollywood since its inception, Los Angeles County is a fitting filming location for ‘The Baxters.’ The production crew stitches together scenes of multiple backdrops from various locales around Los Angeles County to bring the show’s episodes to life. Some of the shooting sites are situated in the neighborhoods of Culver City, Sherman Oaks, Valley Glen, and Los Angeles proper.
Culver City, renowned for its rich history in film and television production, serves as a major filming location for ‘The Baxters.’ Its diverse neighborhoods and picturesque streets provide the perfect backdrop for depicting the suburban setting in which the Baxter family resides. Scenes capturing everyday life, family interactions, and neighborhood dynamics are likely filmed here.
The church the family frequents in the show is actually called the Sanctuary, which is a part of the Congregational Church of the Chimes on 14115 Magnolia Boulevard, Sherman Oaks. The Church of the Chimes stands as a symbolic centerpiece in the series, representing the core values of faith and spirituality upheld by the Baxter family. The venue is usually booked for weddings and events. The church has also seen the filming of NBC’s ‘The Office,’ with its Stave Chappel standing in for the venue of Pam and Jim’s wedding.
A lot of the show’s drama originates from Jim’s actions at the college where he teaches. The real-life counterpart to this institution is the Los Angeles Valley Community College at 5800 Fulton Avenue in Valley Glen. As an authentic educational campus, it provides a realistic setting for depicting the college dynamics and classrooms seen in the show.
Additionally, the production team traveled to 246 Irving Boulevard in Central Los Angeles to capture interior and exterior scenes in a beautiful home. It is known as Windsor Square’s Red Door for its red doorway, which stands out strikingly, juxtaposed by the greys, whites, and blues of the rest of the house. Cast members were seen posing on the steps outside the property while the crew set up shop in tents on its lawn.
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