Cantacuzino Castle

Cantacuzino Castle is a historic residence at Strada Zamorei 1 in Bușteni, Romania, overlooking the town from the foothills of the Bucegi Mountains. It was commissioned by Prince Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino, a wealthy politician who served twice as Prime Minister of Romania, and was completed in 1911 to designs by architect Grigore Cerchez. Built in the Neo-Romanian and Neo-Brâncovenesc styles, the castle forms part of a larger estate that originally included a secondary pavilion, administrative buildings, a chapel and extensive landscaped grounds. Its interiors retain carved oak, stained glass, decorative stonework, mosaics, painted and coffered ceilings and a heraldic collection connected to the Cantacuzino family. The castle remained with the family until it was nationalised in 1948 and converted into a sanatorium, during which much of its original furniture and decoration disappeared and some of the wall paintings were covered. Following the end of communist rule, the property was returned to the Cantacuzino heirs and later sold to private investors, who restored the complex and opened it to the public. Today it operates as a historic attraction and cultural venue, with exhibitions held inside the castle and throughout its grounds.

Cantacuzino Castle has appeared in Wednesday (2022–), serving as the principal exterior of Nevermore Academy throughout the first season. The production used the castle’s distinctive stone façade, central tower, entrance and surrounding grounds as the physical foundation of the fictional boarding school attended by Wednesday Addams, while extensive digital alterations transformed the relatively compact Romanian residence into the much larger Gothic academy seen on screen. Additional floors, towers, mansard roofs and other structures were added digitally, and the real Carpathian surroundings were altered to create the fictional Vermont landscape around Jericho. Nevermore’s interiors were filmed elsewhere, including historic buildings in Bucharest and purpose-built studio sets. Production moved from Romania to Ireland for the second season, meaning Cantacuzino Castle itself no longer served as Nevermore, although moulds taken from architectural elements at the Romanian location were used to help maintain visual continuity in the new sets.

In Wednesday (2022–), Cantacuzino Castle is introduced in the first episode, «Wednesday’s Child Is Full of Woe», when Gomez and Morticia Addams bring Wednesday to Nevermore Academy after she is expelled from her previous school. Their car approaches the imposing academy before Wednesday meets Principal Larissa Weems and begins her reluctant new life among the school’s supernatural outcasts. The castle continues to provide the recognisable exterior of Nevermore throughout the season, appearing in establishing shots and scenes around the entrance and grounds as Wednesday investigates a series of murders connected to the nearby town of Jericho. It is seen prominently again in the fifth episode, «You Reap What You Woe», when Gomez, Morticia and Pugsley return to Nevermore for Parents’ Weekend, with the Addams family photographed and filmed outside the real castle. Although Cantacuzino Castle provides the physical basis for Nevermore, the version seen in wide shots is considerably more elaborate than the real building. Production designer Mark Scruton chose the castle partly because its central tower already possessed the slightly crooked silhouette associated with the Addams Family, while the relatively undeveloped spaces around it allowed the design team to expand the structure digitally. Visual-effects artists retained the real ground-floor stonework and façade but added much of the upper academy, replaced the roofs and digitally reshaped the surrounding landscape so that the Romanian mountain setting became the fictional school overlooking Jericho in Vermont.

---