Original subtitles

The exterior of the Stratford was, it's in East Middlebury.

That's the exterior, and a lot of people stayed there because they remembered

seeing it on Newhart.

I was in Vermont, and I was doing a date in, I think, Burlington, a stand -up

date, and I was invited to go to the inn, but time didn't permit because then

the next day I was off to another city.

Oh, God, hold everything.

You didn't take it yet, did you?

Just now, why?

Oh, no big deal.

But I've gotten correspondence from the people who own it. And they tell me they

get a lot of traffic that comes in just because they see the outside of it and

remember it now.

You know, we are really enjoying it here. My husband particularly is

the change.

I wish this town would figure out this is the 20th century.

It was of its time, you know. People were saying, I just want to get out of

rat race. You know, let's just, the two of us, just, you know, live a normal

life instead of this pressure and, you know, no matter what profession they

in. And so a lot of people saw it as appetizing, I guess, yeah.

I mean, the purpose of buying the Stratford was to restore it, not to make

off it.

There wasn't a bed and breakfast.

It was just an inn.

I was kind of aware of the fact that the bed and breakfast or the inn business

kind of boomed because someone sent me an article from a magazine, a trade

magazine, bed and breakfast or inns, saying before you buy an inn, it

isn't like Newhart, okay?

You're going to be getting up at 5 .30 in the morning.

and you're certainly going to have to have more guests than he has to keep his

place running.

Boy, when you say welcome in Vermont, you really mean it.

Tommy Getz was the original designer of the inn, and I think his intent was that

it be very homey and had a balcony, which was kind of unusual at that time,

second story.

The interior was built strictly to accommodate a situation comedy with the

cameras and angles and things like that.

One of the interesting things about the home base set was the color.

Photographing green is very difficult, especially when you're transferring from

film to video for release, for airing.

Wayne Kennan, our director of photography, drove him crazy because the

come up blue during the transfer.

So he would have to go down.

to where the transfer was made to make sure the color was correct.

It was really great working on New Heart because we had a script.

I would come in the beginning of the season and we'd have a number of scripts

already done.

So that was nice. You would go back and you'd design from the script and you'd

talk with the writers and see what the intent was.

And it was a relatively small show. You know, one, two swing sets maybe.

With the first show, it lasted six years. It should have lasted three years

because I should have lost my license somewhere along the line because I never

helped anybody.

And with Newhart, I probably should have declared bankruptcy after one season if

nobody ever stayed at the end, very few people.

Plus tax would be $274.

When we called, you said you'd give us a 50 % discount because you were still

fixing the place up.

Right, so that would be $137.

And you said something about giving us a discount if we didn't eat breakfast

here.

Right, right again.

It would be $45 from $137 .92.

Right, and we sent you a $100 deposit.

Right, so I owe you $8.