Room For Improvement: Diane (Susan Walters) was excited to show off the results of her hard work to her husband, Jack (Peter Bergman).
Jack wasn’t the only one nervous about Diane refreshing the design of the Abbott mansion on Young and Restless — the people behind the scenes at the soap were also concerned about the consequences of making some big changes to one of its most iconic sets (for reaction to another set’s update, click here
According to Production Designer David Hoffman, “The Abbott house has been a comforting and familiar presence on Y&R since the earliest beginnings of the show. Its stately interior has been at the center of countless stories involving the family behind the cosmetics dynasty that John Abbott founded. But after all those years, the mansion was beginning to show its age, and the decor was no longer in step with current design trends. A refresh was in order, but only if we could figure out a way to do it while maintaining [the] DNA of the original set.”
Bringing the design of the Abbott home up to date also gave the soap the chance to work it into a storyline to create some extra drama — and it was Peter Bergman’s (Jack) idea! Susan Walters, whose alter ego, Diane, led the makeover charge, muses, “I think for Diane, she really wanted to feel a part of the home. In the big picture, the show was ready to update the living room, and it was so generous of Peter Bergman to suggest that it’d be a story between Jack and Diane and a way for them to test how Jack trusts her and for her to really try to put herself out there to make the family acknowledge that she has their best interests at heart by doing it.”
The new wood paneling and wallpaper gives the dining room a more elegant feel.
Peter Bergman not only instigated the overlap between reel life and real life, but played an important role in conceptualizing the redesign. Reports Hoffman, “Working in concert with the rest of the design team — Jennifer Savala, Justine Mercado, and Monica Lowe — we began assembling research pictures of elements that we wanted to incorporate into the final design. Then we asked to have a sit down with Peter Bergman, to present to him our plans for the set his character had called home since he started on the show. In fact, because of his long attachment, we decided to conduct the meeting as if we were having a conversation with Jack Abbott, not the actor who played him. This was a lot of fun, and Peter never broke character until the very end of the meeting.”
When Diane showed off her redesign to Jack and Kyle, the character naturally knew what she had been working on this whole time, but her portrayer had been in the dark about the new look. In fact, the day they shot the reveal was the first time Walters had laid eyes on the set! “That’s partly my fault,” the actress admits with a chuckle. “The set decorators and designers were really generous and asked me at one point, did I want to see everything? But it was, like, maybe the day before [the unveiling scenes] and I was running to get on stage, and I thought, ‘No, I want to be surprised.’ Susan wanted to be surprised; Diane was very trusting.” The actress was pleased with the end results, noting, “I thought they did a great job of updating it, and yet it still looked like it still had antiques and it still had old money.”
Which is exactly the balance that Hoffman and his team were hoping to strike. “To me, the Abbotts projected classic European, old-money sensibilities that have long been associated with wealth and power,” he says. “Their house already had the bones of that, so I wanted to lean into that aesthetic with the addition of millwork and paneling throughout the set, along with the types of decor that one might find in the great houses of Europe.”
The foyer chandelier is now more visible from the living room thanks to the raised arch in the doorway.
While much of the transformation was cosmetic, some construction was involved, particularly where the space between the foyer and the living room was concerned. “The floor plan of the original set remained the same, but we did do a fair amount of reconstruction, both structural and cosmetic,” the production designer shares. “The two most noticeable parts being the new curved arch between the living room and the entryway, which makes that space feel taller and grander, and the six foot tall, raised panel molding throughout the dining room, which gives a formal, masculine feel to the space — which is balanced by the more feminine wallpaper above and the curved draperies over the window.”
Walters also counts that new archway as one of her favorite parts of the redesign. “So now you really see the chandelier,” she enthuses. “It made the whole room just look so much bigger and more open. Oh, and the dining room — I never noticed how pretty the wallpaper was until they did the refresh and kind of brightened and lightened everything up! It’s pretty.”
The actress is also rather fond of a new piece of furniture that was added to the living room. “I love that the princess chair is now a lot cooler-looking — or as we call it, the queen’s chair,” Walters confides. “When I first started on the show, there was a scene where Ashley was sitting in that chair, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s like a queen on the throne.’ And it was so scary for Diane. And then we called it the princess chair, and now it’s like this really kind of cool, modern chair with a sort of leopard-y print. That’s my favorite piece.”
Perhaps one day Diane will take Ashley’s place on that “throne?”
Hoffmann is proud of what his team was able to accomplish with the refresh of the Abbott Mansion and hopes the fans appreciate it as well. “As you look at it, you can see what has been changed and improved,” he declares, “but it still feels familiar and right for the family that calls it home.”
