Devon and Ricken’s Home

The home of Devon and Ricken Hale sits nestled on the slope of a wooded hill, possibly in Ganz, PE, approximately 15 minutes away from Mark Scout’s house in Kier, PE.

The house is built in the Usonian style, an architectural school of thought advanced by Frank Lloyd Wright emphasizing an integration into the surrounding environment, as well as horizontal lines, natural materials such as brick and wood, and natural lighting.

The decor of the house is also in warm tones of browns and reds, a color scheme that echoes the show’s palette dichotomy of cool greens and blues represent the world of the Innie, and reds and oranges represent the world of the Outie. Many portraits of Ricken hang on the walls. It is a warm and welcoming space.

In Good News About Hell, Devon and Ricken host Mark and several of Ricken’s friends for a “dinnerless dinner party” at the house, where Mark’s job on the Severed Floor of Lumon Industries is volunteered by Ricken as a topic of discussion, providing the viewer with insight into the public’s perception of the severance procedure.

The house is also the location where the re-integrated Petey first approaches Mark. Following the no-food dinner party, Mark stays the night at the house. While getting a drink in the middle of the night, he spots Petey outside, staring at him from a distance before disappearing. The next morning, Mark tells Devon that he witnessed “a businessman in the yard last night.” Devon suggests that perhaps he was a drunk stumbling over from a bar down the hill.

In What’s for Dinner? and The We We Are, Devon and Ricken host a book reading for Ricken’s latest self-help book, The You You Are. Both Mark and Mrs. Selvig are present at the reading when Dylan George activates the Overtime Contingency, remotely waking up Mark’s Innie.

After the dinner party, Mark sleeps in a race car bed in yet-to-be-born baby Eleanor's future room where Ricken tells Mark about the philosophy behind the three beds in the room.

Like the the rest of the house, baby Eleanor's room is decorated with art.

One artwork in Eleanor's room is a framed black and white illustrated print by Mexican artist, David Daniel Alvarez.

The illustration is called “Rojos”, Spanish for reds, and features two frogs riding dancing shoes under two hollow wooden legs. Each frog is poised on top of a bone-like stick which is coming out of a dancing shoe.

The artwork may be inspired by the story, The Red Shoes (1845) by Hans Christian Anderson (original story), in which a peasant girl is orphaned by her mother's death, adopted by a rich older woman, and is later cursed to forever wear a pair of red shoes which endlessly dance. She is stuck in the shoes until she decides to have her feet cut off to escape them. Even after cutting off her feet, the red shoes continue to dance with her bones still in the shoes.

The real-world filming location for Devon and Ricken’s home is known as the Bier House (Usonia site 53), located in Usonia, NY (Google Maps). The house is an example of the Usonian style, designed by architect and landscape designer Kaneji Domoto, a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright. It was built between 1948 and 1956 for the family of Arthur and Gertrude Bier.^[1]

• The Bier house was previously featured in the movie 3 Generations (2015).^[2]