742 Evergreen Terrace is the fictional street address in Springfield of the home for the fictional Simpson family in the animated television series, The Simpsons and in the feature film The Simpsons Movie. It is named after The Evergreen State College, Matt Groening's alma mater.

The house to the left of the Simpsons' house is the Flanders family's house, at 744 Evergreen Terrace.^[1][2] The house on the right belongs to Ruth and Laura Powers. A real-life replica of the house was constructed at 712 Red Bark Lane in Henderson, Nevada as part of a contest in 1997^[3].

Contents 1 Design 2 Features and furniture 3 Condition 4 Address and phone number 5 Real-life version 5.1 History 5.2 Contest and winner 5.3 Design 5.3.1 Design team and process 5.3.2 Interior and exterior 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Design

The house is pink-orange two-story detached house with an attached garage, basement, and loft. A suburban tract house,^[3] the building is at least 50 feet wide.^[4] The front door leads straight into the hallway where an arch to the left leads to the sitting room, and one to the right leads into the dining room. There is also a small cupboard and stairs to the second floor. The sitting room and the dining room have bay windows. At the back of the house is the living room and the kitchen. Also toward the house's rear are stairs to the basement, which are replaced by a closet in some episodes. Although rarely seen, there is also a hallway leading to a rumpus room.^[5]

The second story of the house has the bedrooms, including Marge and Homer's bedroom (with an ensuite bathroom), Bart's bedroom, Lisa's bedroom, and Maggie's bedroom. There is a bathroom and some empty rooms,^{[citation needed]} often shown in inconsistent places in different episodes.^{[citation needed]} On the landing, there is a hatch which leads to the attic. A 1995 episode set fifteen years in the future shows a wooden addition to the second floor, built (rather poorly) by Homer. It functions as a guest bedroom, but Homer warns Lisa and her fiancé that, "If the building inspector asks, it's not a room. It's a window box".

The back yard of the house is surrounded by a wooden picket fence and a low box hedge. It features a patio and Bart's treehouse, from which The Simpsons annual Halloween specials take their name.^{[citation needed]} Occasionally, there is a hammock tied to two trees near the fence that borders Ned Flanders' backyard.

[edit] Features and furniture

The basement always includes a washing machine and a clothes dryer and a large Olmec statue of a head which was a present from Mr. Burns after Bart donated blood to him in "Blood Feud" However, the appearance of other features such as a furnace, ping-pong table, air hockey set and water softener vary from episode to episode.^{[citation needed]} The basement is often used as a "secret lair", where Homer has brewed alcohol to beat prohibition, hidden his superhero operation as Pie Man, and where Marge hid during a spell of agoraphobia. Bart hinted in one episode that the basement has a problem with radon gas then let a homeless man sleep there.

The house has two identical red sofas: One in the sitting room which is not seen in many episodes and a well-known one in front of the TV in the living room — the current sofa is a replacement of the old one which was destroyed. A simple painting of a boat hangs on the wall above this couch. Marge said she painted it for Homer in "The Trouble with Trillions", though in the episode "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife", Marge reads a plaque saying that the painting was based on a scene from Moby Dick. In the episode "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass", Homer destroyed the painting over the couch and Marge retrieved a replica out of a closet. Behind the painting there was a safe containing a Twinkie that's been there for ten years. A tank full of fish is sometimes seen in the dining room, but it only seems to appear in episodes where it is prominent.^{[clarification needed]} In the Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror VI" episode, there is a portal behind the bookcase in the sitting room that leads to the third dimension. This is a reference to The Twilight Zone episode, "Little Girl Lost".^{[citation needed]} However, Treehouse of Horror episodes are not canonical.^{[citation needed]} In Treehouse of Horror IV, the famous Dogs Playing Poker painting appears above the sofa. Also, in the episode "Father Knows Worst", a sauna has been revealed to be in the Simpsons' basement, behind the water heater. So far, only Marge and Homer have been shown to know its location.

[edit] Condition

The house is often shown as dilapidated. For example, the walls are painted with lead paint, the roof leaks, and in "All's Fair in Oven War", the kitchen was so badly damaged that it needed to be rebuilt. One running gag shows the interior of the walls and floors filled with dangerous and unusual items when the camera pans between floors or rooms. Some of these unusual items include: asbestos, toxic waste, hidden treasure, recording devices, baby dinosaurs and dancing mice. Even the family cat, Snowball II, is seen between the walls from time to time. However, the lived-in spaces are usually kept neat by Marge. In the episode "Homer's Enemy" Frank Grimes - who lived in a single room above a bowling alley and below another bowling alley - described it as a "palace". In another episode, Moe Szyslak observed that it contained no silverfish. Many episodes in which Springfield is hit by extreme heatwaves indicated that the home's air-conditioning system is either broken or non existent. In a flashback episode, Homer steals Ned Flanders' air-conditioner and installs it in his own house.

In The Simpsons Movie, the house and all of the family's possessions are completely destroyed by a sink hole in Maggie's sandpit, which expands after the Simpsons escape through it and the Police shoot bullets into it. At the end of the film, the townsfolk and the family themselves rebuild the house in exactly the same manner as it was before, restoring the "status quo". The opening sequence and the couch gag of "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs" shows the house still under construction, along with the whole town rebuilding after the events of the movie.

[edit] Address and phone number

The house's address was inconsistent in earlier seasons, with various house numbers on Evergreen Terrace including 1094, 59, 94, 430, 723, and 1024, as well as one address on a different street (430 Spalding Way).^[6] In "Homer's Triple Bypass", "742 Evergreen Terrace" was assigned to a completely different house where Snake hides from the police and Rev. Lovejoy lives next door.

The phone number is inconsistent between episodes, though always starting with 555. According to "A Tale of Two Springfields," the area code was 636 before the events of that episode and 939 thereafter.

[edit] Real-life version

The Simpsons House

Building
Town	712 Red Bark Lane, Henderson, Clark County, Nevada 89011
Country	United States
Client	Contest winner
Construction
Started	May-June 1997
Completed	July 1997
Size	2,200 square feet
Design team
Architect	Michael Woodley, Manny Gonzalez

[edit] History

A replica of the house at 742 Evergreen Terrace, known as The Simpsons House, was constructed in 1997 by California-based^[7] Kaufman and Broad homebuilders at 712 Red Bark Lane in Henderson, Nevada.^[3] The house was designed to closely mimic the design of the animated house in The Simpsons television series.^[3] The $120,000 house was constructed for use as the grand prize in a contest sponsored by Pepsi, Fox, and the homebuilder.^[7] The Simpsons House took 49 days to build,^[8] and was unveiled to the public on August 1, 1997.^[9] Construction on the house was nearly complete by July 1997,^[10] and by September 1997 thousands of people were lining up to see the finished product.^[11] Between August 13, 1997 (when the home was first opened to the public) and September 1, 1997 20,000 people visited the house,^[11] in the end, more than 30,000 people visited The Simpsons House.^[3] The Simpsons creator, Matt Groening, visited the house in September 1997.^[12]

[edit] Contest and winner

The contest was known as "The Simpsons House Give Away"^[13] and the subdivision the house was located in was permanently named Springfield South Valley Ranch subdivision.^[3] The contest was announced on July 10, 1997.^[13] The rules of the contest stipulated that the winner either accept the house or a $75,000 cash payment. In addition, the winner of the house, if they chose to occupy it, was contractually obligated to repaint the exterior in accordance with local homeowner's association rules.^[8]

Contest entries were included on various Pepsi products and 15 million were submitted nationally.^[3] The winner was Barbara Howard from Richmond, Kentucky.^[14] Howard chose not to accept the house, instead taking a cash payment per the contest rules.^[14] In 2001, after removing most the details relating to the television series the house was sold by the builder to another owner.^[3]

[edit] Design

[edit] Design team and process

The Simpsons House was designed by Kaufman and Broad homebuilders. The primary designer was Mike Woodley, Senior Vice President of Architecture at KB Home.^[4] Manny Gonzalez was the project's supervising architect.^[8] The project was first conceived when designers were working on 3D-visualizations at Fox Interactive for the video game, "Virtual Springfield".^[9]

In preparation for the project the design team viewed episodes of The Simpsons to use as a guide for the home's design.^[8] Dozens of episodes were viewed so that the design was drawn directly from the animation.^[4] Early on it became clear that the cartoon house was not structurally sound; in the show the home has no load bearing walls.^[10] The finished replica, however, met all building codes.^[10] The architects focused their efforts on Bart's bedroom and the television room, making sure those rooms were as close to the reality of the series as possible.^[8] One of the challenges architects faced was the constantly changing nature of 742 Evergreen Terrace. For instance, the bay window has changed shape through the years.^[8]

[edit] Interior and exterior

When it was constructed the four-bedroom, two-story house was painted bright yellow and baby blue on its exterior, to resemble the exterior of 742 Evergreen Terrace.^[3] The house included exterior details from The Simpsons such as Bart's treehouse, a swing set, and a back yard barbecue.^[3] The 2,200 square foot house also has two bathrooms, and two front bay windows, again, mimicking the cartoon house.^[14] The supervising architect characterized the house as "90 percent normal".^[14] For example, the first floor was concrete and the upstairs floor was sanded-down plywood that had been painted.^[14] The lot size necessitated the house be just 40 feet wide, compared to the cartoon house, which is at least 50 feet wide.^[4]

Before it was altered, the interior rooms were designed to mirror those in the series. The television room included the favorite spot of Simpson dad, Homer, the large sofa.^[3] On the wall, hung the distinctive sailboat painting.^[3] The living room had brightly painted walls, matching those in the series, and two-tone orange fireplace. The kitchen kept up the motif, featuring the checkered linoleum floor.^[3] The house included 1,500 Simpsons-themed props, such as Duff Beer cans, and the corn cob curtains in the kitchen.^[8] Some of the paint colors used on the interior included "Power Orange," "Generator Green," and "Pink Flamingo".^[8]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Extrapolated floor plans of the Simpsons house

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