Where Is The Umbrella Academy Filmed?

We're not saying that living in a palatial mansion as a member of the Umbrella Academy would have been the most fun way to grow up, but it would be exciting to have the chance to snoop around the house — as long as none of the former occupants were there.

Adapted from the graphic novels of the same name by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, Netflix's The Umbrella Academy touts a distinct visual aesthetic that seems to heighten the drama of certain aspects of the real world while subduing others. The series' visuals are equal parts playful and gritty, and were an important part of bringing the story from page to screen in a way that satisfies long-time fans and engages those discovering it for the first time. The Umbrella Academy's production design, art, and set decoration teams put a lot of thought into making it feel like you could actually walk through those grand, imposing doors of Sir Reginald Hargreeves' (Colm Feore) towering abode — so much so that they earned an Emmy nod in 2019 for their efforts.

Unfortunately, it's not actually possible to take an investigative stroll through the Hargreeves family home — at least not in the way you see it on the show. That said, however, you can visit a ton of locations seen throughout The Umbrella Academy. Heck, you may even recognize some of them if you live in a particular part of the world. This is where The Umbrella Academy is filmed.

Though you can't tour the Umbrella Academy house, you can look at the building from the outside — but it won't look exactly the same as it does on the Netflix series.

Atlas of Wonders reports that exterior shots of the house are of a building on 4 King Street East in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada — embellished with some CGI magic. One of the ways Netflix's Umbrella Academy differs from the comics is that the mansion on the show is in a city, not the countryside. The house is supposed to be three distinct buildings that Hargreeves (Colm Feore) joined together — in the same manner he joined together his seven adopted children, each with unique super-powers. The resulting asymmetric structure reflects the mismatched nature of his forced family. Such a place doesn't exist in real life, so the building in Ontario served as the basis of the home and CGI built the rest — at least on the outside.

The Umbrella Academy team constructed the interiors of the Hargreeves mansion in a studio, which gave the production crew the chance to create each person's bedroom from scratch. Production designer Mark Worthington told Syfy Wire that they imagined that Sir Reginald left the interior design up to the family's robot mother figure Grace (Jordan Claire Robbins), who drew on the limited information she had access to. Worthington referenced Good Housekeeping magazine and the Sears catalogue as inspiration, adding, "She has a robot's idea of what a little boy's room, or a little girl's room, is." The rooms exist on a soundstage, but you can't recreate the experience of walking through the mansion exactly, because the layout is completely different.

Sadly, Grace missed out on a room of her own. She was supposed to have her own parlor, but budget constraints meant she instead got a couch, according to Worthington. "Even though she's not human, she's still trapped in this space, and limited in what she can understand about the outside world," he stated.

The Umbrella Academy takes us through multiple eras and timelines and even into space, so visiting every location in a day would be impossible. However, many of the most important locations are all pretty close together in Ontario, Canada.

For example, Atlas of Wonders places the pawn shop Vanya (Ellen Page) visits at 169 King Street East in Hamilton — just a few streets away from the house used as the exterior for the Umbrella Academy mansion. But if you visit just one city for your unofficial Umbrella Academy tour, make it Ontario's capital, Toronto, about 40 miles north of Hamilton. On Queen's Street East, you can find the blue, yellow, and red buildings used for exterior shots of Vanya's apartment. (Yes, she really lives above a butcher's shop.) And on the same street but moving westward is the Queens Mini Mart convenience store, less than a mile away from Griddy's Doughnuts, a formerly empty cafe in a mall that the crew renovated for the show.

Sticking with Vanya, you can also visit the Icarus Theater in Toronto — well, sort of. The exterior is Massey Hall (a performing arts theatre in the downtown area) and the interior is the Elgin Theatre (one of two theatres actually stacked on top of each other), which is just around the corner. Both of these places were also used in The Shape of Water, according to Atlas of Wonders, and that's not the only location you might recognize on the series. If the cabin from The Umbrella Academy looks familiar to you, it might be because you've seen it in NBC's Hannibal and Netflix's Polar. It's practically a background actor at this point.

With The Umbrella Academy quickly approaching its second season on Netflix, which will take the action to Dallas in the 1960s, fans should expect to see even more awesome locations crop up.