Prue ends up on Pittock Mansion’s doorstep desperate for help, somebody who can get her safely through the woods to find Mac before it’s too late. Looking up at the imposing estate, it seems exactly the place to find it. However, what she discovers when the doors swing open is not a helping human hand, but talons, hooves and paws, for inside these organised, hierarchical walls is a sprawling, bustling society of talking animals. It’s among the hares, bears and beavers that Prue gets her first real taste of a huge world beyond her own problems, realising that while Mac’s disappearance may feel like the most important thing in the world to her, the inhabitants of Pittock Mansion have plenty of struggles of their own.
“Pittock Mansion is essentially the seat of government in this fantastic world,” explains Travis Knight. “The whole world of Wildwood is carved up into these various different factions.” As Prue moves through its halls, she finds herself caught in the middle of those divisions. Rather than immediately helping her on her quest, the mansion’s residents are wrapped up in politics, procedure and their own competing agendas. Or, as Knight puts it, they’re “so caught up in their own nonsense that they’re not able to see somebody who’s in distress and needs their help.”
Like much of Wildwood, Pittock Mansion is rooted in a real Portland location. The filmmakers made multiple scouting trips to the actual building, a French Renaissance-style estate completed in 1914, using it as the basis for their giant model recreation. “We really exaggerated the characteristics and leant into the fantasy,” says Knight. “But I still look at it and see the Pittock Mansion that I grew up with.”
Production designer Nelson Lowry and his team carefully documented every part of the building before beginning work. “We started by studying its history, photographing the exterior and getting a tour of the interior,” he explains. “We needed to observe every detail.”
That research fed into everything, from the layout of rooms to details like the stained-glass window above the entrance, reimagined via the addition of a Council Tree (“the heart of Wildwood” notes Lowry) to tie the mansion into the world’s wider mythology. For Butler, it was all about having one foot planted in the actual Portland and the other in the chaotic world of talking-animal politicians: “It really does root it in a kind of reality that’s more complex and sophisticated than just making stuff up.”
Inside Pittock Mansion, a hive of animal activity.
Set dresser Nellie Veitenheimer adds some finishing touches to Pittock Mansion.
Bewildered but undeterred, Prue finds herself navigating a building that screenwriter Chris Butler describes as “a fantastical DMV”, referring to America’s famously snail-paced Department of Motor Vehicles. Behind the beautiful architecture and this orderly façade sits a system that’s creaking under its own weight. Knight describes the animal house as symbolic of “the dysfunction of government and the ineptitude of bureaucrats”, but Wildwood approaches those ideas with Laika’s signature artistic style. With its eccentric creatures and Terry Gilliam-esque design, Pittock Mansion becomes Prue’s first lesson that the magical world beyond hers is far more complicated than she ever imagined.
Pittock Mansion isn’t just important because of the building itself. It’s also where Prue learns of one of Wildwood’s most delightfully weird inhabitants — Owl Rex, the Crown Prince of the Avian Principality. Once a powerful political figure, he clings onto the old ways. “The first time we see him, he’s drinking a cup of tea with his claws,” smiles Butler. “This big bird acting like a fancy human.” Yet while he’s now more than a little down on his luck, he may prove to be just the ally Prue needs on her quest.
Even so, nobody is coming to solve Prue’s dilemma for her. She must find her own path forward if she is to save her baby brother. And as we’re about to discover, Pittock Mansion is just the first stop on this life-changing adventure...
Owl Rex ruminates over a cup of tea.
AFTER ENCOUNTERS WITH CHATTY coyotes and seemingly sentient coils of ivy, Prue’s journey leads her to the apparently regular stone walls and red-roofed turrets of Pittock Mansion. A sprawling manor perched on the edge of South Wood, its grand exterior looks peaceful. But inside, Prue finds a chaotic scene, flipping her understanding of Wildwood upside down all over again.
Words: Harry Stainer
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PRUE FACES WHAT MIGHT BE HER GREATEST TEST: MAGICAL ADMIN