The Dundas house where Hallmark Channel’s the ‘Good Witch’ works her magic
To some, it is a heritage house in Dundas, built around the time Dundas became a town in 1847, and two decades before Confederation.
But to the fans of the Good Witch" - called The Goodies by some - it is the home where magic is made.
The elegant home at 7 Overfield St. is called Foxbar House in real life, but in the popular Hallmark Channel TV series it is known as the Grey House and is the home of enchantress Cassandra Cassie" Nightingale (Catherine Bell).
It has been that way through seven Good Witch" movies and six seasons of the show, which is shown on Netflix and the W Network in Canada. The house will feature in the 7th season. The series was set to film night shots at the home earlier this month.
Filming is permitted under the province's state of emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic. The film companies have to enact protocols to protect actors and crew members.
Homeowner Liz Heersink said that before the pandemic hit, she regularly had members of The Goodies drive up and knock on the door. The show does not film inside the home anymore - the interior has been recreated in a Toronto studio - but Heersink is accommodating to the fans and lets them come inside.
They just want to see Grey House," she said. They've come from California, Chicago, Texas, Florida, Australia and a couple came from Italy. There's been others. It's just craziness. They really want to see the place. A couple of them have cried. She walked on this floor.' They get quite emotional."
She said she gets a kick out of it all and there is a very noble side to it. The money the film company pays to use the home is donated to the Good Shepherd Centre by Heersink.
The house was the scene of other films before the Good Witch." Heersink opened her home to a 2007 thriller called They Come Back" and the 2008 CBC biography on Celine Dion called Celine."
When Good Witch" people came calling for the first movie in 2007, Heersink had no idea it would develop into something beyond that.
It was a one-off, but everybody liked it," she recalled. It became one of Hallmark's most popular shows ever."
The Good Witch" has been described as a gentle fable by one critic. Cassie inherits the rundown and haunted Grey House in the town of Middleton and moves in with her daughter, Grace (Bailee Madison, who left at the end of the 5th season). Cassie turns Grey House into a bread and breakfast and also runs a shop called Bell, Book and Candle (filmed in a Dundas shop until a few years ago)
She develops friendships, most importantly with Dr. Sam Richard (James Denton) and his son Nick (Rhys Matthew Bond).
The 5th season saw Cassie and Sam tie the knot in a two-part episode called The Forever Tree." Last year, an episode focused on Grey House celebrating its 225th anniversary.
Heersink said the company usually shoots at the home in August for a Halloween special and then from October to December, but the pandemic threw that schedule off. They can be there for a couple of days, but one time they were there for two weeks. They never shoot on weekends and they clean up any mess they create.
Heersink has met Bell and the other actors. Her greenhouse and laundry room serve as a room for the actors to wait before they are needed on the set.
They are the loveliest people," she said. I think to make films that are family friendly, they have to be. They are so polite and so gracious."
The show has shot scenes all over Hamilton, most notably Locke Street South. It has filmed at Dundurn Castle, Liuna Station, Westfield Heritage Village, The Scottish Rite, the Ancaster library, Pier 4 Park, Valens Conservation Area and Courtcliffe Park in Carlisle. The show also films in Cambridge.
Daniel Nolan is a freelance writer who writes about film for The Hamilton Spectator. He can be reached at dannolanwrites@gmail.com