Verity Found Its Creepy Dream House in a 1960s Dansk Designer Home

The new film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's 2018 thriller Verity takes place almost entirely inside a 1960s Armonk, New York, house designed by Jens Quistgaard, the chief designer of the heritage Scandinavian homeware brand Dansk. Production designer Amy Williams says the property, known as Beckoning Path, was not the obvious choice — and she had to push for it.

"There were some on the team that were a little bit hesitant because it wasn't the safe choice," Williams says. "But this is not a safe movie. So we wanted to go with the iconic, dangerous choice."

Directed for the screen from Hoover's bestselling novel, Verity stars Dakota Johnson as Lowen Ashleigh, an up-and-coming writer hired to ghostwrite for the famous, reclusive author Verity Crawford, played by Anne Hathaway. Jeremy Crawford, Verity's husband, is played by Josh Hartnett. To do the job, Lowen moves into the family's remote Vermont estate, where the house holds the dangerous secrets of its inhabitants. The filmmakers treated the dwelling as a character in its own right.

How did the team find the house?

Williams and location manager Elizabeth Krekel searched broadly for a location that matched the book's obsessed-over world-building. "We were very open to whatever felt like it could best encapsulate these characters in this world and this environment," Williams says. One requirement: the property had not appeared onscreen before.

When Williams saw a photograph of Beckoning Path, the search ended. Quistgaard, the Danish designer behind Dansk's iconic tabletop wares, built the residence for the brand's founders, Martha and Ted Nierenberg.

"I don't think it was anything that anyone pictured, but when I saw the exterior, it was like a fantasy dream come true for a midcentury-modern girl like myself," Williams says.

The house delivered built-in symbolism. Its dramatic gabled Vs along the exterior read as "V" for Verity — a detail Williams had hoped to find or incorporate. With its peaks and sharp angles, the home reads as an architectural wonder in daylight and something more sinister in the shadows of night.

What was done to the interiors?

Beckoning Path currently operates as a tai chi retreat, so Williams' work involved outfitting the space rather than stripping it back. She and her team scoured sites like 1stDibs for pieces plausible for the wealthy Crawford family — but with a subtly spooky edge.

"We wanted the space to feel inhospitable to kids, and that it's not a warm, fuzzy family home," she says. "You want people to feel uncomfortable [while watching]."

Nearly all of the decor bears spiky edges or angular forms; the furniture feels nearly as threatening as the characters within.

Which rooms were built on a soundstage?

Not every space at the property could serve the cameras. The hallways, the sprawling bedrooms and Verity's home office were either too cramped or lacked the right lighting. Williams and the production team designed and constructed those sets at Broadway Stage in Queens, New York.

Building sets that blended seamlessly with Quistgaard's existing architecture demanded deep study of the designer's philosophy. "His forms are very specific," Williams says. "So a lot of the design of the sets was pushing what he'd done forward in a more dramatic, cinematic way: more verticals, more pitches in the ceiling, and sharp angles."

Hathaway, whom Williams has worked with on multiple film projects, proved a valuable collaborator in assembling Verity's world. "She's a really great, open collaborator," Williams says. "And she has great taste, so it's fun to pick out artwork and furniture with her. She's almost like a sounding board, when I'm trying to make a decision: like, Do we get the crazy, chrome desk, or the wooden one? She helps me make choices, which is a real luxury in this business."

With Verity joining the run of Hoover adaptations headed to the screen, Beckoning Path now joins the short list of private residences — never before filmed — that carry an entire studio feature on their bones.