Is Stars Hollow A Real Location? Where Gilmore Girls Was Filmed

Nearly 25 years after it premiered in 2000, “Gilmore Girls” remains a beloved show with a massive fanbase. The series originally ran for seven seasons (mostly on The WB, with the final season airing on The CW) before Netflix brought it back for a revival season titled “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life” in 2016. The vast majority of those 150+ episodes take place in the fictional town of Stars Hollow, a small town in Connecticut where everybody knows everybody.

Now, not to break any hearts here, but Stars Hollow is not technically an actual town. It was the brainchild of series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, but it’s also a setting that’s meant to evoke the feeling of a real small town in the Eastern, New England region of the U.S. Indeed, “Gilmore Girls” at large centers on Lorelai Gilmore (Laruen Graham) and her daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel), focusing on their relationship as a single mother and teen daughter living the charming, small town life.

So, where was “Gilmore Girls” filmed, exactly? If Stars Hollow isn’t a real place, then where did all of the drama (and comedy) unfold over those eight seasons of television? Not to spoil it but, unfortunately for fans of the show, it’s not like there is a “Gilmore Girls” tour of the town in Connecticut like there are “Lord of the Rings” tours in New Zealand. Still, Stars Hollow is, in a sense, a real place, and one with a lot of Hollywood history.

The “Gilmore Girls” pilot was the only episode of the series shot in an honest-to-goodness town, with filming take place in Unionville (a suburb of Toronto, Canada). There is even a self-guided tour available on Markham, Ontario’s website. The rest of the show, however, was filmed on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California, all the way over on the other side of the country relative to the fictional town the series takes place in.

This famed lot was transformed into Stars Hollow for seven seasons. Warner Bros. has more than 100 years worth of history to its name, with near-countless classic movies and TV shows utilizing that lot over the years; “Gilmore Girls” is just one of them. Nevertheless, the show continues to be highlighted on the official WB Studio Tour.

So, in that sense, Stars Hollow is a real place one can visit — just don’t expect to be able to take a trip to Luke’s Diner or anything like that. Speaking with The Hartford Courant ahead of “Gilmore Girls” season 3 airing in 2002, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino explained how the show’s creatives changed the backlot to suit the needs of the series:

“We added brick, we changed some of the streets, added storefronts, extended stuff, put in streetlights. We basically turned it into Stars Hollow. I’m constantly filling in the town and adding small businesses. Last year we added a wonderful lake with a bridge […] The thing about Stars Hollow that hopefully appeals to people is that sense of community. It’s a sense of safety and warmth. You know the people.”

Like any show, “Gilmore Girls” had its highs and lows across its eight seasons. Still, fans continued to tune in because they loved its characters, and Stars Hollow is as much of a character as any of the actual humans in the show. It felt real. That’s at least partially because it was very much inspired by real places that the show’s creator visited.

In a 2005 interview with The AV Club, Amy Sherman-Palladino explained that real locations in Connecticut inspired the fictional town of Stars Hollow:

“I was going to put them in a city area, but then I went on vacation to Connecticut, because I wanted to see Mark Twain’s house. I stayed at an inn, and it was very charming, in a tiny town, and everybody seemed to know each other, and there was a pumpkin patch across the street. I went to a diner, and people kept getting up to get their own coffee. No one was there to be waited on. It seemed like a fun environment to put [the characters] in. It happened over a two-day period, as far as place and where they would live.”

So, even though Stars Hollow isn’t real, the inspiration behind it was genuine. That small town feel, which Sherman-Palladino experience first-hand, is what gave the fictional town that Lorelai and Rory Gilmore lived in its genuine feel (which resonated with audiences).

“Gilmore Girls” is streaming now on Netflix, or you can buy the complete series on DVD via Amazon.