"Psycho" House

The Many Faces of the Bates Mansion

You’d recognize the Bates Mansion from the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho anywhere, right? Maybe not. Oh sure, you’d recognize images from the 1960 movie, but the house itself is different every time you see it. And you’ve probably seen it in other movies and TV shows and didn’t even realize it. Universal Studios used the house -or parts of it- for a lot of different productions. In fact, the movie Psycho only used a facade for exterior shots!

The Psycho house was constructed in an interesting way, something akin to using Lego to build a home. ‘Stock units’ were taken from existing structures and pieced together to create whatever the studio needed at the time. As a result, the tower section of the Bates house actually came from another home set that stands on Universal’s back lot.

See how the Bates Mansion and its components were used over the years at Urban Ghosts.