The Bachelor Mansion Has How Many Layers of Paint??
Bachelor Mansion
It’s impossible to discuss iconic reality TV filming locations without mentioning Bachelor Mansion. The Mansion, less commonly known as Villa de la Vina, is a Mediterranean-revival style estate settled in Malibu’s Santa Monica Mountains. Since 2007, we have witnessed dozens conventionally attractive people stand on that freshly pressure washed driveway, hoping to meet their soul mates—or more realistically, someone they’ll date for six months tops after the season wraps.
The show’s production crew takes care of all the interior design choices for the show, and the aesthetic varies from season to season. For The Bachelorette, they tend to lean more toward darker colors; navy walls are a popular motif, as well as leather furniture—masculine furnishings to fit the high amounts of testosterone running through the house. For The Bachelor the decor is much more feminine; lighter colored couches, floral rugs and wall decor, and bohemian-style lamps often fill the space. These moody design choices are perfect for a show where every season is “the most dramatic season yet.”
Bachelor Mansion is owned by contractor Marshall Haraden, who along with his family and all their belongings, vacate the house for 42 days out of the year so that The Bachelor franchise can be filmed in their home. The Mansion is redecorated and repainted after each season, either to change the aesthetic for the next season, or to restore it back to the Haraden’s original colors before they move back in. It’s estimated that since 2007, when Villa de la Vina became Bachelor Mansion, 44 coats of paint have been applied to the walls.
When it’s not filming season, the Mansion can be rented on AirBnB. When it was first listed on the site in 2020, you could rent the whole house for $5,999, however, since then, the price has skyrocketed to a whopping $23,343 per night. If you and 12 of your closest friends (AirBnB says the Mansion sleeps 13) can shell out that kind of cash, the version of Villa de la Vina you’d stay in might look a little different than the Bachelor Mansion we all know and love.
The images on the AirBnB listing tend to mainly showcase rooms that we don’t see too much of on the show—bedrooms, bathrooms, the kitchen—even the recognizable rooms look completely different. The house is rented in the state that it’s in when the Haraden family occupies it, and the family’s aesthetic is much more mild than the dramatic, lust-driven warzone that viewers are used to.
The normal design of the house leans into its Mediterranean revival architecture, most of the rooms have cream-colored walls, some of them layered with a rich golden color to create a kind of distressed, rustic look. This wall effect is one of the most prominent remnants of the Haraden’s design style that comes through on the set of The Bachelor, being seen on one of the large fireplaces, which is a popular conversation spot during the cocktail parties.
Villa de la Vina has definitely proven to be a versatile backdrop, and after over 15 years, it has definitely seen some interesting moments. From the time Jesse Palmer (who is now the host of the franchise) infamously forgot a girl’s name during the Rose Ceremony, to when the contestants on Season 11 had to choose whether they wanted Kaitlyn or Britt as their Bachelorette. If those heavily-coated walls could talk, I’m sure they would have stories even crazier than what we see onscreen.
