Many of the events and period details seen in Feud were re-created with an impressive degree of faithfulness to their real life counterparts—for example, check out this side-by-side comparison showing Feud’s version of Bette Davis’s appearance on the Andy Williams Show versus the actual one. Some elements, however, called for a bit of creative license. Such was the case with Joan Crawford’s mansion.

By the time Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? began production, Crawford no longer owned a luxurious Los Angeles mansion, having decamped for New York several years earlier. Between 1960 and 1972, she kept a rental apartment on Fountain Avenue for her Hollywood stints. Rather than dutifully depict that less-than-impressive fact, the show used this Paul Williams-designed Colonial Revival in Holmby Hills for exterior shots of Joan’s home, while the ultra-glamorous Hollywood Regency-style interiors that renowned decorator Billy Haines had designed for Joan’s former Brentwood abode were reproduced on a studio set with the help of vintage magazine articles and archival photos.

Production designer Judy Becker also cites Sunnylands, the Rancho Mirage retreat of philanthropists Walter and Leonore Annenberg, as a major influence on the show’s look. Now open to the public, the estate was designed in the mid-60s by A. Quincy Jones, with interiors by Haines and Ted Graber. “Midway through pre-production, I went on a tour, and it was very inspirational,” recalls Becker. “I wanted to take pictures of so many things—the furniture, the paint colors, the list of phone numbers on the bedside table—but no photos are allowed inside the house; they’re really strict about it.”

In real life, studio mogul Jack Warner lived in an extravagant neo-Classical mansion designed by high-society architect Roland Coate on a nine-acre lot in Beverly Hills. According to a 1992 feature in Architectural Digest, “an invitation from the Warner estate replaced one from Pickfair as the most sought after in the thirties and forties movie community.”

The Feud production found a worthy stand-in for the Warner estate in Hancock Park’s Ralph J. Chandler House, designed by high-society architect Wallace Neff in 1960. (Regular Curbed readers may recognize the Chandler House from its appearance on the site in August, when it was listed for sale at $6 million.)

The property’s wood-paneled library, column-lined loggia, and romantic garden can be seen in the show’s second episode, during a fancy soiree hosted by the hard-nosed studio head. But that’s not the only time the stately manse appears in the show. “It was a very versatile and gorgeous house,” says Becker. “We also shot one of Bette's kitchens, Geraldine Page's New York apartment—I put a gate on the window for that—and Olivia De Havilland's Paris apartment there.”

Designed by architect Paul R. Williams, Beverly Hills’ elegant Perino’s was for decades the place to see and be seen among Hollywood’s elite. Bette Davis had a reserved booth, Frank Sinatra sometimes played the piano, and Cole Porter once penned a song on the back of a menu. But since we apparently can’t have nice things, the legendary eatery was demolished in 2005, replaced by a four-story, 47-unit apartment complex.

Feud’s production team constructed a very convincing replica that was mostly faithful to the original, though Becker injected a few extra stylistic flourishes inspired by decorative details she had admired at Sunnylands.

In Episode 3, “Mommie Dearest,” Bette (Susan Sarandon) and Joan (Jessica Lange) share a rare moment of quasi-cameraderie over drinks in a cozy red-boothed pub, a scene that was filmed at West LA time capsule Guido’s. “Originally, we thought we were going to shoot at a place called Billingsly’s,” Becker says. That plan got kiboshed when Billingsly’s underwent a major overhaul shortly before filming began. Someone on the crew suggested the nearby Guido’s as a substitute. “I thought I knew about all the vintage places in town, but that was the first I’d heard of Guido’s—it was a great discovery.”

The Santa Monica Boulevard restaurant looks a tad different on the show than in real life. Explains Becker, “When Billingsly’s remodeled, they took out their old Tiffany-style chandeliers and put in new lighting.” Upon learning of this, Becker arranged to rescue the discarded fixtures and transplanted a few of them temporarily at Guido’s to enhance its midcentury ambience.

The Palace Theatre on Broadway in Downtown LA can be spotted in Episode 5 playing the part of the theater on New York‘s Broadway where Joan pays a backstage call on Anne Bancroft and finagles her into agreeing to allow Joan to accept the Oscar if Miss Bancroft was declared that year’s Best Actress winner (spoiler: she was).

For its recreation of the 35th Academy Awards, in which Joan deviously managed to steal Bette’s spotlight despite not being nominated herself, Feud filmed at the same location where those Oscars were held: the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, designed in 1958 by Welton Becket.

However, Feud creator and this episode’s director Ryan Murphy told Variety: “I was so excited that we got to use the real Santa Monica location, but when we showed up, my heart sank, because it looked completely different, as you would expect. All of that outdoor facade and the bleachers area and all that have been torn down. The trees had been torn down. The interior there was new, like, plastic stadium seating that didn’t exist then. The backstage area, only 20 percent of it remained. So we decided, you know what, we’re just going to rebuild it, and if we can’t rebuild it, we’re going to CGI it in, and that’s what we did.”

Poison-penned Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper liked to refer to her Beverly Hills mansion as “the house that fear built.” But for Feud’s purposes, Hopper’s actual residence simply wouldn’t do. “She lived in a traditional ranch-style house,” explains Becker. “It was nice, but not very dramatic.” So for the scene in Episode 2 where Hopper (played by Judy Davis) summons the cat-fighting co-stars to dinner, the show chose Hancock Park’s formidable Petitfils-Boos Residence for the site of the tense meeting.

The cinema where Joan and her loyal housekeeper, Mamacita, sneak into a test screening of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? is San Pedro’s incredible Warner Grand Theatre, designed in 1931 by architect B. Marcus Priteca and interior designer Anthony Heinsbergen. “It’s really intact, including the projection room,” says Becker. “Way better than the ones in Downtown LA.”

The show’s fourth episode sees director Robert Aldrich (Alfred Molina) futilely attempt to argue with Frank Sinatra (Toby Huss) while Ol’ Blue Eyes enjoys a round of golf. The scene was shot on location at the Rancho Park Golf Course, conveniently located across the street from the Fox Studios in Century City. Feud’s production team was delighted to discover that the golf club has a midcentury time capsule coffee shop, which it used as the setting for a meeting between Aldrich’s assistant Pauline (Alison Wright) and Joan’s right-hand woman Mamacita (Jackie Hoffman).

Downtown’s King Edward Hotel was designed way back in 1906 by prominent Los Angeles architect John Parkinson. It appears in Feud’s sixth episode as the place of employment of Joan’s blackmailing brother, Hal.

In Bette & Joan’s final episode, Joan’s agent informs her of two offers she has received—one for the film that will eventually be called Trog, the other for her to write a lifestyle book. The location chosen for their Manhattan meeting was Brentwood’s Early World cafe. “I wanted to use Early World because it reminds me of New York,” says Becker. “We may have been the last production to film there—sadly, it’s about to be closed. And there aren’t too many places like it left.”

Episode 7 of Feud: Bette and Joan revolves around the fraught production of Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. Ably serving as a stand-in for the Louisiana courtyard hotel where the Charlotte cast and crew stay was Long Beach’s SeaPort Marina Hotel. “The SeaPort is another place where we were the last production to film—it’s going to be torn down,” says Becker. “It was perfect for us, because it had open-area rooms across from each other. We didn’t have to change anything except the room decor.”