Huntze Archive: Filming The Pilot

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All photographs from the Huntze Family Archive, kindly provided by Chris Huntze. Most of the text comes from Chris, giving us his personal recollections of the house – our additions are in italics.

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Set photographs

Chris provided us with several B&W interior shots of the great room during filming. We think this is the real room rather than the studio version built in LA, so taken during the location filming of the pilot episode.

A handyman is standing by one of three sets of French doors in that room, that lead out into the patio courtyard garden. A cast member (?) is sitting in the corridor beyond the round-topped door – we aren’t sure who that is. But we’re pretty sure that’s Johnny’s stetson on the table!

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A lovely shot of the bookcases, with ship – and it’s this that makes us think this is the real Rancho. Compare it with the photo below, of the main room bookcase, taken in 1968 and provided by Chris: the ships are identical, and so are the book covers immediately below it.

(BTW, who is that standing out in the hall, through the round-topped door? We first thought it was maybe Scott, but maybe not – where are those plaid pants?! Chris suggests it might be Andrew Duggan, and we think he may be right.)

The production crew has changed the other ornaments on top of the bookcase, but otherwise that ship and the shelf of books is identical. No matter how true to the original the studio-built version is, do you think they’d go to the lengths of recreating the actual books? Nope. We don’t either.

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The wall and furniture to the left of the big fireplace nook.

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The fireplace with its crossed spears – you’ll remember in the studio-built version, they replaced the spears with a large plaster decoration with the Lancer L carved into it. In another of the photographs taken in 1968, you can see the large round patterned pouffe seat on the floor (here covered by an animal skin) – take a look at the page The Huntze Archive: The House At Rancho San Carlos to see the Huntzes’s babysitter lying over it.

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Eleanor Huntze’s letter

My Grandmother’s letter is interesting. I don’t think she ever sent it out. In the letter she mentions J.J — this was the dancing club she and my Grandfather belonged to in Oakland, California. The year must be 1967. We just don’t know which Wednesday it is.

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Article in the Monterary Peninsula Herald, 20 December 1967

An article on the filming, saved by the Huntzes. Note the point about how cold it was! It’s something Chris picks up on below. You can also see Teresa standing to the left in the
picture wearing a long coat.

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Chris’s insights in filming the pilot episode

Morro Coyo

I think the filming at Morro Coyo is not at the ranch – when Teresa picks up Johnny and Scott from their stage coach ride, where they learn they are half-brothers. Those buildings do not look familiar at all. They could have used another stage for this, maybe in Southern California.

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The First View of the Hacienda

When Teresa is driving the brothers in the buck board, and they come to view spot where she stops and looks down to the flats to point out the Lancer Ranch— I am almost certain they are up a road to goes to a fire lookout tower. I forget if the tower was on ranch property, or just outside, but that view looks like the area of where that road is.

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Also, from this high view spot, you can see Moore’s lake out to the left side of the flat valley, with the main Hacienda house to the right. Some shots you can pick out the circular driveway to the front door of the house under the 2nd story bedroom suite. (ie the driveway that runs under the portico)

In this scene, see the snow on the hill tops in far back ground at the horizon to the sky. This is uncommon in this part of California, to have snow this low, but as you can read in the newspaper article (from the Monterey Peninsula, above), they had a morning at 13 degrees Fahrenheit. That is unusually cold for this area. Must have been hard to work.

Another thing about California near the Coast. We joke that we only have 3 seasons.  As you can see, in filming in December of 1967, the grass is already starting to come up. 

Teresa brings the brothers in the main vehicle gate at the front yard, This is the gate we drove in with cars. As you drive into this driveway going toward the main house and front door, the guest house driveway goes off to your right, toward the creek.

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Pardee Gang’s Hideout

The hideout away from town used by the Pardee gang, with its pond and the large rocks near the pond, looks more like the topography farther south in California, more near Hollywood – but I am guessing. That could be in the ranch, but I don’t know of anything with such steep slopes there.

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The Attack on the Hacienda

I thought they may have shortened the fence that Johnny jumps over with his horse as he is being chased by the Pardee gang. I freeze framed just as the horse is in mid-air and it looks like they took two horizontal rails of the fence out, so it would not be so tall. Still an impressive jump at full speed for Johnny’s horse. Looks like they shortened 2 sections of the fence where the horse jumps over.

Which reminds me of the swimming pool at the edge of the side back yard. The land slopes down toward the creek in this part of the yard, the pool was cut into the ground and does not stand up very tall. So it was easy for them to film the Pardee Gang and Johnny riding into the back yard, and not show the pool.

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That famous oak tree…

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When Johnny gets shot and falls from the horse, and Scott comes to his rescue, they are next to the Guest House. Johnny and Scott are near a large oak tree, much larger than ones near the main house. That is the guest house in the background, behind Scott and Johnny.

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This picture is dated Aug 1969, and the only explanation I can think of is that the film did not get developed till later. (This seems logical, as we know the pilot was filmed on location in 1967).

This is Day Pardee (Joe Don Baker in costume) near the tree that he grabs and swings around as he falls, after he is shot by Scott. This is at the front corner of the Hacienda house on the Guest House side. It gets confusing because the tree that Day grabs is gone in a 1979 photo. So that corner of the house looks completely different later on, and now.

Day Pardee (or a fill in for that character) is near the tree, in the sun, his left hand is on the ground as if he is falling backward, or he is posing in this position. In the scene from the aired episode, Day falls to his back with out putting his hand down as in the photo. (This photo, then could be a record of a run-through or rehearsal before actual shooting.)

The shadows from the tree look like the sun is low in the sky , so it is late in the day – sunset is at front of the house. Pardee is very close to the corner of the main house. In the episode, one brief scene before he is shot by Scott, you can see the portico behind him. With the portico behind him in that scene, this tree is just in front of him.

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And very thrilling: here is one of the gun cartridges (blank Winchester bullets, we think) found on the grounds after the gunfight was filmed. It’s now in Chris’s possession. And boy, are we envious!

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Related links:

The Hacienda main page

Aerial views of the house and environs, taken from Google Earth.

The Huntze Family Archives
Eleanor and Wes Huntze
The House at Rancho San Carlos
The Rancho’s Grounds

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