Obsessed With the ‘Practical Magic’ House? Same. Here's How to Channel It This Fall

Story time: It’s a school night in late October, and I’m eight years old in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey—a woodsy, East Coast pocket where houses feel as warm and welcoming as the families inside them. Our living room is paneled in dark wood with a hefty oak mantel; the floors click under wool socks; the lamps always outshine the overheads. My mom is in the adjacent kitchen, simmering hot cocoa in a dented copper pot, a garland of dried orange slices clipped above the sink. I curl into a vintage Ralph Lauren chair my Dad picked up at an estate sale and flip on Practical Magic. Before the plot even starts, the house has me hooked: the white Victorian with a widow’s walk and that glass conservatory; the beadboard, the open shelves, the apothecary jars. It feels like the grown-up version of our own place—East Coast bones, a little witchy if you squint, deeply lived-in. 

All of this is to say that, if Nancy Meyers’s kitchens are my daylight fantasy—marble, task lights, bowls of lemons—the Practical Magic house is my after-dark one: moody jewel tones, a touch of color drenching, a whisper of Whimsigoth and textiles you can disappear into. It’s the look I’ve been chasing ever since that night in my parents’ living room—equal parts New England nostalgia and small-town coziness, with just enough shadow to make you want to light another candle.

So, what’s the potion that makes this house feel just as enchanting in 2025 as it did in 1998? I’m breaking down my favorite cozy design moments from the film—and how to recreate them at home—below.

Picture a house where lamplight pools on beadboard walls, where a wraparound porch catches the first bite of October air and a glass conservatory hums with herbs drying on twine. Copper glints from a rail, a long wooden table stands in for an island and every doorway feels like a threshold to another ritual—tea, tinctures, midnight margaritas. That’s the spell of the Practical Magic house: a place that looks cinematic but lives like a home.

It hits a nerve for me because, again, I grew up in an East Coast town filled with homes that prized bones and provenance—dark panels, genuine hardwood floors and estate-sale finds that have outlived the trend cycle. Plus, working with designers later in life taught me to clock materials and scale. The Owens house marries both instincts: Victorian structure (spindles, beadboard, scrollwork) character-filled accents (ironstone, apothecary jars, stacked books), and layers of light—table lamps, library lights, beeswax tapers—so moody hues reads warm instead of murky.

That said, it’s not the architecture that captures the feeling we’re obsessed with—it’s the fact that the house behaves like its own character on screen. Take the viral midnight margaritas scene, for example; it’s a sleepover for grown‑ups. Lime wedges skitter across the long farm table, the aunts twirl barefoot on scuffed wood floors and laughter fogs up the conservatory windows until it feels like the house itself is laughing with them. Morning resets the scene with chocolate cake and coffee at the same table, herb bundles and homework sharing the spill of lamplight. A botanical gallery turns the staircase into a place to pause—shoulders touching for a beat before the day speeds up. On the porch, a rocker keeps time while one sister waits for news and the other braids worry into laughter. Even the talismans—the jarred spices, pressed flowers and scribbled spells tucked into drawers—feel like treasures from our own sleepovers as kids. The house makes room for all of it—mess and magic, grief and giggles—and that’s why it sticks: We see our own childhood bonds living in those corners.

In fact, this is exactly the feeling the designers of this home set out to bottle. Before founding Roman & Williams, Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch decided the Owens home had to feel like history you could touch. Per Architectural Digest, they built the exterior from scratch on San Juan Island, “finding inspiration in late-19th-century scrollwork, East Coast lighthouses and Victorian homes,” then landscaped it until it looked inherited. “In many ways we’re Aunt Jett and Aunt Frances,” Standefer told AD. “We created their world, their home, their spirit through their objects…It is a home that truly is a cabinet of curiosities…Like any generational, family home, it accrues memory through its objects. It is all about collecting.” 

She and Stephen Alesch pushed that idea into the tiniest details: “We made every little thing… down to the tincture jars and pressed flowers,” with an “incredible etchings of plants” circling the dining room—so the rooms read like memory you can touch, not a backdrop you pass through.

That brings me to why Whimsigoth has a chokehold on us right now—and on me. The ’90s-born blend of Victorian revival and soft goth lifts the house’s core ingredients: saturated greens and inky blues, dark wood and unlacquered brass, velvet and brocade, botanicals under glass, apothecary jars and taper candles. The Practical Magic house has become the mood board for rooms that cocoon you with lamplight and book stacks—and make patina feel intentional. Its coziness has pulled me back every October since elementary school (with a few emergency March nights when I need wool socks and candlelight). And it’s also why the sequel—debuting on September 18, 2026—already feels like a homecoming. 

So below, find my whole-house formula—porch to attic—for channeling the vibe at home without slipping into costume.

First up: Those glass-front uppers in the Owens kitchen. The cabinets feature muntins framing, stacks of ironstone and teacups, cookbooks tucked behind wavy panes—all while the paned double doors swing open to the conservatory like a breath of fresh air. The glass does two jobs at once: It turns everyday objects into display (elevating them, but nothing feels precious) and it bounces lamplight back into the room, boosting that unmistakable candlelit glow. In the potions room, the effect intensifies—rows of labeled jars behind glass, pressed flowers pinned near the hinges. And if you’re channeling it at home, you’ll want to mix clear and reeded glass, add simple brass turns or latches, and leave your prettiest kitchen tools in plain sight.

In Practical Magic, the long, scarred worktable is the kitchen’s heartbeat—midnight margaritas at night, letters and herb bundles at dawn. The turned legs keep it airy next to the stove wall and the overhang invites mismatched chairs to slide in without crowding the room. Wood softens all the tile and metal; a bowl of limes or a copper pot makes an easy, ever-changing centerpiece. If you’re hunting: look for aged tops with real wear, mortise-and-tenon joinery and a length that can seat six but still pass as prep space.

This house prefers lamps to overheads—shaded bulbs on the counter, a library light over the bookcase, a small lamp on the parlor desk where notes are scribbled. That’s why everything reads cozy, not spooky: pools of warm light on beadboard and papered walls, beeswax tapers punctuating the table, sconces marching up the stairs. The trick is scale and quantity—several small sources instead of one bright one—so the room can follow the conversation. Start with a petite ceramic lamp near the kettle, then add a brass pharmacy light to a shelf, and dimmers everywhere.

Beyond the cream kitchen, the film leans moodier—beadboard wainscoting and millwork carried onto doors, rails and even ceilings so the color wraps you. In the parlor and stair hall, deep greens and inky blues read cozy because they’re broken up by panel lines and softened by lamp glow; the attic shifts lighter with white boards and exposed rafters. That envelope is what makes the house feel so nostalgic. To borrow it, pick one small space (entry, powder, reading nook) and paint trim, walls and ceiling the same shade, then finish with nickel or unlacquered brass bin pulls and a worn Persian runner underfoot.

Finally, the conservatory is a lived-in still life: terracotta pots, cloches over cuttings, rosemary and sage hanging to dry. Back in the potions room, shelves line up hundreds of jars—bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, teas—beside stacks of herbals and battered novels, where science and story share the same surface. That’s the secret: greenery for life, glass for ritual, books for soul. Recreate it with a narrow metal étagère, real herbs in clay, clear canisters with hand-written labels and a short stack of secondhand hardcovers; leave the mortar and pestle out like punctuation.