‘Only Murders’ Production Designers Patrick Howe and Rich Murray On Designing New Spaces for The Arconia

With every passing season of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, we are going to explore more apartments and spaces within the iconic Arconia. Season two of the John Hoffman and Steve Martin comedy delved into the unknown history of the apartment complex, but we can tell there is even more to explore. By including cobwebbed tunnels and apartments designed by the kooky residents, production designer Patrick Howe and set decorator Rich Murray expand on this hilarious world by giving each space its own personality.

Bunny Folger didn’t like people. Well, that’s okay, because a lot of people didn’t like Bunny! Since she died mysteriously at the end of the first season, the sophomore outing finds our main trio (Martin, Selena Gomez, and Martin Short) trying to hunt down her killer. In death, Bunny allows people to step into her apartment, and some may be surprised by the cutesy warmth the may find. I couldn’t help but ask about a chubby, ceramic cat sitting pretty on a high bookshelf.

“It’s the same style as the bunnies we have in the angle nook, and it’s the only place that Mrs. Gambolini felt safe with it in the room,” Murray says. “We had an entire conversation–or twelve–about it. All of the sconces and chandeliers in Bunny’s apartment are pineapples, and that’s a symbol of welcome and knowing that she is the most inhospitable person in the building felt funny. When we find out that she’s been bullied for most of her life and is cranky because of that, that’s her armor. It makes it more poignant. Oliver says that Bunny is a kinky one because of the nude portrait, and the pineapples are a symbol for swingers. All of that was part of the joke. We originally thought it might be over-the-top.”

“What could be over the top for us,” Howe jokes. “We wanted a flattering space anyway, because we it’s nice to look at. We don’t want it to be off-putting. I believe that Bunny would have a good faith attempt to have a nice place, but she can’t help that she comes off as a crabby bitch. It’s the best of both worlds to play the irony and then set a lot of action in a cheery place.”

Bunny’s beloved Mrs. Gambolini has a cage that’s grander than any other bird on television. Of course, we pamper and spoil out pets, and it appears that Bunny wanted to make sure Mrs. Gambolini felt comfortable. It also had to be functional for a key plot reveal.

“I shopped for the cage, but we felt this was the best midcentury kind of feel for her space, especially with the wallpaper,’ Murray explains. “Patrick designed the rest of it to work, and then we made it bird safe.”

“I knew in the initial designs for the set that I wanted to make the focus of the room to have an aviary area,” Howe says. “This architecture, at the time, wasn’t necessarily designed for a bird in mind. By creating an alcove with a proscenium, decorated space, we give a lot of attention to Mrs. Gambolini. She’s an important character, so it was worth it to set it all up. For the base, we knew that the painting would be revealed, and our showrunner, John [Hoffman], let us know that the painting had to fit in one way or another. There were so many iterations of how and why it would be discovered. John was adamant that it would be part of the cage.”

The most opposite of the new apartments belongs to Nina Lin, Bunny’s Board President successor. In the first few episode, Howard tells the amateur sleuths that she might have something to do with Bunny’s death, and they get a peek at her surroundings as they tiptoe in the tunnels in the walls. It has dark, somewhat menacing features but it retains a severe elegance.

“It’s the opposite of Bunny’s apartment, and we were still striving to justify what works in terms in residential interior design,” Howe says. “It’s tasteful and handsome to someone. This was a case where we were blatantly to show Nina’s characteristics on her sleeves. It was okay with us that it come off as harsh and fierce as possible, but you can justify it as attractive. We were going for the feeling of angst if you stepped in there.”

“That even goes into the wallpaper choices,” Murray adds. “Above Nina’s fireplace, there was a chain-link pattern printed on grass cloth. It’s elegant, but it’s about the bondage. The sconces are chains as well. Things are angular, dangerous, pointed, and spidery to get that feel of Nina having her claws into the building and into Bunny. When they reveal The Arconia with the spaceship structure over it, it’s funny, but she’s willing to do anything to make her millions off this building.”

“The most child unfriendly space imaginable for a pregnant character,” Howe says with a chuckle. “At some point, it’s going to hit her that she is going to need to change some things. Up until that point, she decorated without the child in mind.”

It appears that the penthouse will always feature a super famous person playing an odd version of themselves. Sting occupied the penthouse, but Amy Schumer is the latest addition to The Arconia’s premiere apartment. It provides a relaxing atmosphere for the former Oscar hose with large plants and aspirational flamingo figures that would make Trixie Mattel envious.

“I think we gave a softer side of Amy,” Murray explains. “When you look at the wallpaper flanking the naked dad portrait, it’s a feather pattern, but it looks vaginal. How much funnier can you get than giving Amy Schumer vagina wallpaper. She walked in and she was beaming. You have these big Monstera plants so it looks like a jungle and we have the flamingos. It was about her making a soft, quiet respite for her when her outside world is crazy.”

“Amy Schumer and Sting wouldn’t live in the same vibe,” Howe says.

The tunnels that run throughout The Arconia could have been a throwaway set piece, but the designers were poised with an interesting problem. Do they model the pattern of the hallways that we are familiar with? Sometimes Charles, Oliver, Mabel, and Lucy scatter around while someone is chasing them. How big could they be without looking hokey?

“The designs I originally showed John were much wider spaces, and he kept asking me how big it was,” Howe says. “He kept saying that it needed to be tighter, and I was worried that five people running through this skinny hallway. I worked with the DP to find the narrowest that we could possibly go, and it was down to the inch for a camera to fit on a dolly track. It was all about finding the vocabulary that was sort of plausible in terms of structural materials.”

“The thing that made me nervous was wondering if we needed to make these passageways different by each floor,” Murray says. “We were very particular that if you lived in the A-line apartments, your apartment would look a certain way. With the bit where Mabel comes up into her closet or with the shelf in the bathroom sliding away, I was concerned at first, but it turned out to not be an issue. They all shot it so well.”

Only Murders in the Building is streaming now on Hulu.