Decorating & Design
Inside The Dream House From The Roses
Published on December 15, 2025
The Roses movie (currently streaming on Disney+, Hulu, Prime and Apple TV), is a reimagining of the 1989 classic The War of the Roses. This remake pairs a chef, Ivy (Olivia Colman), and her husband, architect Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) facing off as their careers shift and marriage crumbles. Theo designs a perfect dream house (right down to double islands and Julia Child’s former stove) and it’s so beautiful that Theo and Ivy would both kill for it. Olivia Colman concurs: “Oh my God, the house!” she marvels. “I can imagine that when people see it in the film, architects all over the world are going to be jealous. It is so beautiful.” Below, see this picture-perfect cinematic house and kitchen.
The house becomes a central stumbling block when divorce looms since both Theo and Ivy each refuse to give it up. “I just had to design a house that an architect who was trying to prove something to himself would design,” says production designer Mark Ricker.
“It had to be the perfect house,” adds director Jay Roach, but that required some movie magic. The home was supposed to be located on a bluff overlooking the Pacific in Northern California but the spare Scandi interiors were built on sound stage and the exterior shots were filmed on the UK’s Devon coast.
The fireplace is set on a wall of ebonized wood to anchor the bright ocean views, while the multi-level deck includes a sexy sunken conversation pit. “I wanted the house to represent how deconstructed their marriage was,” Mark Ricker explains. “And visuals symbolized that, it’s got holes in it and looks fractured, almost as if the house is deconstructing itself.”
The architecture was inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright to create the effect of a contemporary timber house with expansive glass walls.
Ivy’s character is a rising Northern California culinary star whose humble seaside food shack, We’ve Got Crabs, becomes a sensation after a major restaurant critic stumbles upon it. After hitting it big and spawning multiple franchises, Ivy is reaping the rewards of her restaurant’s success so the kitchen is the star of the house, representing her dream kitchen.
Featuring a generous double island, the kitchen is a chef-worthy nod to Ivy’s cooking expertise. A skylight floods the space with light with lots of sleek overhead task lighting.
Dark marine-blue stained uppers contrast the pale oak lower cabinets. Extra-deep Carrara marble counters have dramatic grey veining, while the flooring is wide oak planks.
The battered enamel stove and cooktop (which Ivy explains once belonged to Julia Child during her early culinary forays in France) is her pride and joy. For a personal touch, kitschy 1920s and ’30s canisters are displayed in niches, so they appear to be items Ivy collected over time.
Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures/Jaap Buitendijk